Significant rise in COVID-19 rate in Athlone

Tadhg Carey

Published: Fri 2 Oct 2020, 9:46 AM

Last updated: Fri 2 Oct 2020, 10:43 AM

There has been a significant deterioration in Athlone's COVID-19 situation in the last week.

New figures released last night show that the Westmeath side of Athlone now has the highest rate of new COVID-19 cases in the county.

Figures for the 14-day period from September 15 to September 28 show that there were 16 new confirmed cases in the Athlone local electoral area of Westmeath during that time period.

On a population basis, per 100,000 people, Athlone has the highest rate of cases during that 14-day period at 70.5 – compared to 30.8 per 100,000 in the fortnight from September 8 to September 21.

The Moate electoral area, in contrast, now has the lowest rate of COVID-19 cases in the county on a population basis.

A colour coded map showing the rates of COVID-19 on a population basis. See illustration below for meaning of the colour coding.

In the most recent 14-day period for which figures are available, there were five new cases in the Moate electoral area – which spans Moate, Mount Temple, Tang, Drumraney and Ballymore, and stretches south east as far as Tyrrellspass, north as far as Rathowen and east to the outskirts of Mullingar.

This equates to a rate of 27.1 per 100,000 people, the lowest in the Westmeath, down significantly from 65.1 per 100,000 in the period from September 8 to September 21.

During the most recent fortnight (September 15-28) there were 16 new confirmed cases in the Mullingar electoral area and 8 in the Kinnegad electoral area.

The Mullingar electoral area is now showing a rate of 61.6 per 100,000, a sharp rise on the 34.7 per 100,000 people previously.

Kinnegad which had the highest per population incidence last week has seen its rate drop from 69.2 per 100,000 population to 36.9 per 100,000.

All four Westmeath areas remain at a lower level than the national average of 88.2 per 100,000.

The figures are compiled by Department of Health, the Ordnance Survey Ireland, the All-Island Research Observatory, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, the Health Service Executive, and the Central Statistics Office.

They can be viewed here