By Kenneth Fox
A further 26 deaths and an additional 988 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed this evening by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet).
The Department of Health said 24 of the deaths occurred in February, one occurred in January and one in October.
The median age of those who died was 81 years and the age range was 58-98 years.
26 of this evening's cases are in Waterford, and there have been 318 cases in Waterford over the past 14 days.
378 of the cases are in Dublin, with 68 in Galway, 61 in Kildare, 47 in Limerick, 45 in Louth.
The remaining cases are spread across all other counties.
With 26 new deaths this evening, there has now been a total of 4,135 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland.
There is also now a total of 214,378 confirmed cases of the virus in Ireland.
There are 719 people in hospital with the virus, of which 149 are in intensive care.
As of 8pm on Friday the 19th of February, there were 40 patients with Covid-19 at University Hospital Waterford, 3 of whom were being treated in ICU.
