The three counties with soaring Covid-19 rates as daily cases continue to grow

Donegal, Kilkenny and Louth are the three worst hit counties in Ireland for Covid-19 at the moment.

Cases are continuing to grow in the locations that can't yet get their incidence rate below 150 per 100,000 people.

Donegal remains the worst hit place in the country with a two week incidence rate of 226.8 as of midnight, December 8.

Kilkenny, which had controlled the virus well to this point, has a rate of 191.5 after 190 cases in 14 days.

Louth comes next on the Department of Health's list with a rate of 153.6 having recorded 198 cases in 14 days.

Wicklow, Carlow, Monaghan and Limerick all have rates higher than 100 too but remain more stable than the above three.

Priority list in full for Covid vaccine in Ireland

Leitrim is the best county in Ireland in terms of the virus followed by Westmeath and Wicklow.

A further 227 cases were confirmed in total on Wednesday with five more deaths as a result of Covid-19.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: “Today we have seen 8 new admissions to ICU, the most in a 24 hour period since the spring time.”

"COVID-19 is still an extremely infectious disease which has the potential to lead to hospitalisation and even ICU admissions.

"Ireland has managed to suppress COVID-19 to the lowest incidence levels in the EU in recent weeks. We have managed to keep up our safe behaviours and worked to protect each other throughout the pandemic.

"If we do not continue to suppress the disease through the actions we have learned over recent months, we will very quickly see a surge in infections leading to an increase in hospitalisations, ICU admissions and, tragically, deaths.

"We are actively planning to begin vaccinating people in early 2021. We cannot afford to drop our guard now."