The Westport Local Electoral Area saw a massive increase in the number of positive Covid-19 cases in the two week period from Tuesday, July 13 to Monday, July 26 with 176 new cases confirmed in that time period, up from 12 in the two week period before that.
A pop up testing site was operational in Westport last weekend on Friday and Saturday in Scoil Phádraig on the Newport Road, where just under 400 people attended.
The 176 positive tests in the Westport area worked out at 957.7 per 100,000 population, which was far ahead of anything else in Mayo. The next highest incidence of positive cases in the county was in the Ballina area, which had 350.7 per 100,000 after 88 positive cases, then came Claremorris with 316 per 100,000 after 86 positive cases, followed by Castlebar with 206.7 per 100,000 after 62 positive cases. The two local electoral areas with the lowest incidence rates in the county were Belmullet with 158.7 per 100,000 after 20 positive cases, and Swinford with 127.3 per 100,000 after 22 positive cases.
When it came to hospital admissions due to Covid-19, Mayo University Hospital was still had one of the highest admission rates in the country, with the most up to date figures at the time of going to print coming from Tuesday, August 3.
On that night Mayo University Hospital had 17 cases admitted to the hospital, the third highest in the country just behind UHG in Galway which had 19, and St James' in Dublin with 18. The previous Wednesday, July 28, had seen 14 confirmed cases in Mayo University Hospital, that had dropped to 12 by Friday July 30 and increased again to 16 on Saturday July 31, before rising by one again for the latest figures to hand.
There were also 16 people on trollies in Mayo University Hospital awaiting admission according to the INMO's Trolly Watch figures yesterday (Thursday ) morning with eight of those on trollies in the Accident and Emergency Department and eight others elsewhere in the hospital.
