Tag Archives: Covid-19

THE new Managing Director of Ennis-based Retail Excellence Ireland (REI) has issued an appeal to shop owners to come forward and avail of supports to help their businesses survive and thrive in the turbulent environment created by the pandemic. Duncan Graham, a Nottingham native, who takes the helm from David Fitzsimons, noted that the last three to four months has seen five year’s worth of transition in the retail sector – with the most notable change being the acceleration from bricks-and-mortar to multi-platform retailing. Against that backdrop, Mr Graham sees a number of opportunities, not only in the move to online channels, but the new awareness among consumers of what smaller, local retailers can offer. Having lived and worked in Ireland for the last 24 years, Mr Duncan has experience with some of the country’s leading retailers. “I came to Ireland with Marks and Spencers,” he explained. “I’m a retailer through and through.” Also on his impressive CV are a …

NO new cases of Covid-19 have been detected in Clare today. That’s according to the latest figures from the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), who are appealing for people to follow infection control guidelines over the Bank Holiday Weekend. It follows concern over a spike of 11 confirmed cases reported on Thursday. Today (Friday) the HPSC has been notified of 38 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 26,065 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.  There have been no new deaths reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre today. The total number of Covid-19 related fatalities to-date remains at 1,763. The breakdown of today’s cases is as follows: • 22 males/ 16 females • Median age 30 years • 82% are under 45 years of age • 32 cases are located in Dublin or Kildare • 26 are associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of confirmed cases Over the past two days a total of …

Eleven additional Covid-19 cases have been diagnosed in Clare bringing to 22 the total number of new cases in the county since last weekend. Acting Chief Medical Officer, Dr Ronan Glynn said that as of midnight Wednesday, July 29, the HPSC has been notified of 85 confirmed cases of Covid-19. There is now a total of 26,027 confirmed cases of the virus in Ireland. The 11 cases in Clare represent the second largest increase in the county since June 1 when a total of 37 new cases were confirmed. The HSE also confirmed that the eight cases announced on Tuesday are new, and that some of them relate to a cluster in the Ennis area. It follows on from the three additional cases announced on Sunday, which brought a five-week run of being Covid-free to an end in Clare. The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the county stands at 380. The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been …

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has been notified of 40 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There were no new cases reported in Clare. The county figure remains at 372. There is now a total of 25,929 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.  There have been no new deaths reported to the HPSC today. There has now been a total of 1,764 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland. The HSE is working to identify any contacts the patients may have had to provide them with information and advice to prevent further spread. Dr Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said; “Today’s cases are spread across a range of different settings and age groups. 75% of cases are under 45 years of age, with a median age of 33 years. At least half of today’s cases were known close contacts of other confirmed cases. “It remains vital that if a person is concerned that they have been in contact with a confirmed …

Among the people appearing before the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response today is Shannon Group CEO Mary Considine. Representatives of Ryanair, Aer Lingus and the DAA are also appearing before the committee in Leinster House. Passenger numbers at Shannon have fallen very significantly since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, while some Shannon Heritage sites have remained closed and others, including Bunratty Castle, are due to close for the season at the end of August. Shannon Group is also responsible for the operation of Shannon Heritage.  Speaking before the meeting, Committee chairman, Michael McNamara TD said: “The catastrophic impact the pandemic response has had on the aviation industry was outlined to Committee members, last week by unions. TDs were warned of a “tsunami” of redundancies and the potential liquidation of Aer Lingus. “We will continue our investigation into this sector, when we hear from officials from the management of Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports and officials from airlines; Aer Lingus …

Three of the 12 new cases of Covid-19 are in Clare.  The number of confirmed cases in Clare now stands at 372. The new cases in Clare are the first confirmed in the county in a fortnight. There have been no new deaths reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre today. There has now been a total of 1,764 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland. As of midnight Saturday July 25, the HPSC has been notified of 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 25,881 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.  The HSE is working to identify any contacts the patients may have had to provide them with information and advice to prevent further spread. The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community.

IT is no longer appropriate to treat the whole country as just one zone for the purposes of fighting Covid-19, according to Clare TD and Chairman of the Oireachtas Covid-19 committee, Michael McNamara. He believes that Ireland is not too small to divide into different zones, while he said official reluctance to do so reflects a tendency to focus on the needs of Dublin solely. “Ireland is small, but it’s not that small. It’s not Luxembourg. It’s big enough to break it into sections if they wanted to, but the tendency in Ireland, increasingly, is what’s good for Dublin is good for the rest of the country and what’s bad for the rest of the country doesn’t really matter.” He said that it would be possible to introduce different restrictions for different counties. “It would depend on the medical advice but I would have thought counties (are zones that could have different regulations from each other). I mean if you …

THE son of an Ennis couple is among a team of academics that have won an international Covid-19 data science competition. Oisin Fitzgerald is a research officer and phD scholar at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia. He is part of a group team from UNSW’s Centre for Big Data Research in Health (CBDRH) in collaboration with the South Western Sydney Clinic School (SWSCS) which has won CovidR, a global competition assessing the contributions of the R software platform to the Covid-19 pandemic. Oisin’s parents are Michael Fitzgerald from the Turnpike and Grainne Hogan, formerly from O’Connell Street and Ardlea Road in Ennis. Oisin, lecturer Dr Mark Hanly and Senior Research Fellow at South Western Sydney Clinical School Dr Tim Churches were awarded for their open-source COVOID software built to model Covid-19 transmission and intervention strategies. “Widespread social distancing and lock-downs have been remarkably effective in containing the spread of Covid-19, but they are blunt tools that come …