Coronavirus cases amongst NI over-80s down by nearly half in past fortnight, latest figures show

The latest figures from the Department of Health at Stormont show that — as of Saturday, February 6 — another 390 people had tested positive for the virus.

In the past seven days, there have been 3,070 new cases recorded — a decrease on previous week’s figure which stood at 3,841.

The drop in the number of people testing positive has been most pronounced in those aged 80 and over.

In the past seven days, 183 people in that age group tested positive for the virus, compared with 233 the week before — a drop of around 25%.

And at the same time of week a fortnight ago, the seven-day figure for the over-80s was 342.

That means the number of people in that age group testing positive for the virus has declined by around 47% over the past fortnight.

The number of coronavirus patients in hospital has also continued to decline in recent weeks.

There were 602 inpatients with the virus when the latest figures were recorded — a huge drop on the peak of 1,033 on January 13.

The number of people in intensive care with the virus, meanwhile, remains high with virus patients outnumbering those with all other health conditions combined in intensive care units (ICU) across Northern Ireland.

There were 67 virus patients in ICU when the figures were recorded, compared with 51 for all other health conditions.

Of the 67 coronavirus patients in intensive care, 59 were on ventillators.

Meanwhile, another seven coronavirus deaths have been recorded to bring the total death toll from the virus reported by the Depatrment of Health to 1,922.

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