James Cox
Nine further Covid-19 related deaths and 379 additional cases have been confirmed in the Republic of Ireland today.
Fewer than five of this evening's cases are in Waterford and the 5-day moving average number of case in the county is five.
There has now been a total of 4,929 Covid-19 related deaths and 253,567 confirmed cases in Ireland.
Of the cases notified today:
- 190 are men/185 are women.
- 77 per cent are under 45 years of age.
- The median age is 29 years old.
- 171 cases are in Dublin, 27 in Donegal, 28 in Kildare, 24 in Limerick, 22 in Cork and the remaining 107 cases are spread across 18 other counties including Waterford.
As of 8am today, 117 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 34 are in ICU. Twenty additional Covid-19 cases have been recorded in Irish hospitals in the past 24 hours.
Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said: “This week is a hopeful week and one that we have all been looking forward to. We have gotten to this point by working together in following the public health advice and reducing incidence of disease in our communities.
“We need to continue to focus on the measures that we know can protect ourselves and our loved ones from Covid-19 — we can plan to meet friends and family where it is safe to do so and those who have been vaccinated can have confidence in their vaccine. They are now able to get out and about and enjoy the benefits of the vaccine.
“The two primary targets as we try to exit the pandemic are vaccination and low transmission. If we can keep cases low and continue to vaccinate as many people as possible, we will find ourselves in a very different risk environment where we can see further easing of measures. Our task now is to keep the disease under control by following the basic measures and taking up our vaccine when it is offered to us.”
