James Cox
Over 1,500 people have been swabbed for Covid-19 at the country's five walk-in testing centres.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) has reported a steady stream of people arriving to avail of the free test.
Five centres opened this morning, four in Dublin and one in Tullamore in County Offaly.
Each person tested will receive their test result by text message within 48 hours.
Speaking at this evening's brief Nphet briefing, Dr Miriam Owens, director of Public Health, HSE, said: “Today sees the opening of new walk-in test centres in areas of high transmission to enable increased ease of access to testing facilities for people who don’t have symptoms. If you do experience symptoms, I would encourage you to contact your GP to arrange a test as soon as possible. Together we can break the chains of transmission of this infection, by washing our hands, keeping a safe distance and by avoiding all non-essential activity where you are mixing with others.”
Three further Covid-19 related deaths and 606 additional cases have been confirmed in the Republic of Ireland today.
Of the deaths reported today, two occurred in March and one in February.
There has now been a total of 4,631 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland.
As of midnight Wednesday, March 24th, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has been notified of 606 confirmed cases of Covid-19.
There is now a total of 232,758 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.
Of the cases notified today:
- 298 are men/305 are women.
- 75 per cent are under 45 years of age.
- The median age is 33 years old.
- 249 cases are in Dublin, 57 in Donegal, 39 in Kildare, 32 in Meath, 31 in Louth and the remaining 198 cases are spread across all other counties.
As of 8am today, 312 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 75 are in ICU. 24 additional Covid-19 cases have been reported in Irish hospitals in the past 24 hours.
As of March 22nd, 690,449 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland:
- 503,796 people have received their first dose.
- 186,653 people have received their second dose.
