LAOIS had a big spike in Covid-19 cases today, with 105 new cases reported.

It is a disappointing surge, after the county had only six new cases yesterday.

Today’s increase brings the 14-day virus incidence in Laois to 843 per 100,000 people. There were 714 new cases in the county in the two weeks up to midnight last night.

The virus incidence in Laois is still far lower than the average national rate, which is 1,291.2 today.

Laois also has the seventh lowest virus rate in the country, coming 20^th out of the 26 counties today.

Meanwhile, the ongoing surge in cases nationally continued today, when eight deaths and 6,888 cases were announced. These bring the death toll to 2,344 and cases to 147,613 since the outbreak of the pandemic.

confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today, 60% are under 45 years of age and the median age is 38.

At 2pm today, 1,452 Covid-19 patients were hospitalised, including a record number of 125 in ICU. There were 100 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Today’s cases, 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and new cases in last 14 days (as of midnight 09 January 2021) (incidence rate based on Census 2016 county population)