Young people now account for the vast majority of new COVID-19 cases.

All of the 23 new cases announced last night were under the age of 45 – and 77% of them were under the age of 25.

Health officials said it marks a “clear change” in the way the virus is spreading.

Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, at the COVID-19 update at the Department of Health. Picture by: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Speaking last night, the acting Chief Medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn warned that, if people do not behave with caution, we could soon find ourselves back in a situation we would be “very concerned” about.

“If we try to go back to living and acting like we did last January, it is only a matter of time before we are facing a significant problem with this disease,” he said.

“We have got cases in a number of locations around the country linked to clusters. That demands a huge amount of resources and if that replicates itself over the coming days and weeks, we will be back in a situation we would be very concerned about.”

Caution

He said young people must be sensible if they are gathering this weekend.

“You can gather with six, ten, 20 friends, don’t social distance and all of you could be seemingly healthy but it only takes one person in that group to be spreading COVID,” he said.

“All of the people in that group might be fine, perhaps no-one will get unduly sick – but that might not be the case for all of their families and all of their loved ones.

“So really, please, think twice.”

Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group at the daily COVID-19 briefing, 28-05-2020. Image: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews

Meanwhile, the Chair of the COVID Modelling Advisory Group, Professor Philip Nolan said the reproductive rate of the virus is on the rise again – with every person who gets infected now passing it on to at least one other person.

“So, for several weeks now, we have been looking at a decline of the disease and reduced transmission and R numbers in the region of 0.5,” he said.

“Our best estimate, as you would expect from looking at the number of cases in the past week, that the R number is at or just above 1.”

He said three weeks ago, there were no outbreaks outside of healthcare settings; however, “as we are circulating more, we are beginning to see outbreaks in different settings – including travel-related outbreaks.”

Six further coronavirus-related deaths were announced last night along with the 23 new cases.