Tomas Doherty
A further nine deaths and 443 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the Republic on Tuesday.
Three of the deaths occurred in January, two in February, three in March and one in April.
Of the new cases, 6 were in Waterford, 208 in Dublin, 32 in Cork, 24 in Kildare, 20 in Meath, 17 in Donegal, with the remaining cases spread across all other counties.
The latest figures show 261 Covid-19 patients are in hospital, with 60 in intensive care.
The 14-day incidence rate in Waterford is now 69.7 cases per 100,000 of the population - that's a 40% decrease in the space of 7 days. (Incidence 116.2 March 29th)
Offaly has the highest incidence rate in the country at 408 cases per 100,000, followed by Westmeath at 260 and Donegal at 246.
The 5-day moving average number of cases in Waterford is five.
It comes as the Minister for Health said one in six adults in Ireland have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
Stephen Donnelly also said Ireland has one of the lowest rates of Covid-19 in Europe.
The HSE plans to ramp up the vaccine programme following months of setbacks and missed targets.
Despite plans to administer one million doses of Covid-19 vaccines throughout April, the Government revised down its target to around 860,000 vaccines.
Last week, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that the vast majority of adults will be offered at least one dose by the end of June.
Meanwhile, new data shows that more people in almost every county are continuing to travel further than 10km from their home.
An estimated 64.2 per cent of the population stayed local during the week ending March 26th, according to the Central Statistics Office’s latest Staying Local Indicator (SLI).
With the exception of Monaghan, which shows no week-on-week change, all counties showed SLI decreases, ranging from 1.6 percentage points in Meath to 0.2 percentage points in Mayo.
Dublin continues to be the county with the highest percentage of the population staying local at 79.2 per cent, reflecting its urbanised nature and access to services compared with other counties.
The data shows that there continues to be a relaxation in adherence to Covid-19 travel restrictions. – Additional reporting: PA
