By Kenneth Fox
A further 25 deaths and a further 566 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed this evening by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet).
They said that five deaths occurred in March, 13 occurred in February and six occurred in January or earlier.
Waterford continues to be below the national average in terms of Covid case numbers.
Six of this evening's cases are in Waterford and the 14-day incidence rate in the county is now 174.7 cases per 100 thousand population.
The national 14-day incidence rate now stands at 199 cases per 100,000 people - the first time it has gone below 200 this year.
Nphet said of the cases notified today: 280 are men and 284 are female. 68 per cent are under 45 years of age and the median age is 34 years old
Regarding the location of the rest of tonight's cases there are 233 in Dublin, 37 in Kildare, 30 in Meath, 25 in Donegal, 24 in Westmeath and the remaining cases are spread across all other counties.
As of 8am today, 489 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, and 114 are in ICU. There have also been 29 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
As of February 28th, 439,782 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland: a total 297,899 people have received their first dose and 141,883 people have received their second dose.
Dr Ronan Glynn, deputy chief medical officer said:
“Through the hard work and sacrifice of the vast majority of people, key disease indicators continue on a positive trajectory.
“However, we are still seeing outbreaks in the community, including those linked to extended families, workplaces and funerals. We need to keep up our guard against the B117 variant of COVID-19, which we know is dominant in Ireland at present and highly transmissible.
“Our willingness to stick with the public health advice in our daily routine has brought us the progress that we can see today. Together, through staying at home as much as possible, social distancing, hand washing and wearing face coverings, we can continue to drive down the spread of Covid-19.”
