Covid-19: 10 further deaths, 592 new cases

THE Department of Health has been notified of ten further deaths of people with Covid-19 and 592 confirmed new cases.

Of the deaths announced today, eight happened in March, one in February and one in January.

The age range of those who died was 0-84 years and the median age was 75.

There have been a total of 4,509 Covid-19 related deaths and 225,179 cases of the virus in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today, 299 were men and 288 were women, 72% of whom were under the age of 45. The median age was 32 years old.

Cork accounted for 20 positive cases and currently has the third-lowest incidence rate nationally.

Dublin accounted for 253 of the cases, there were 52 in Kildare, 35 in Donegal, 33 in Meath, 28 in Galway and the remaining 191 cases are spread across all other counties.

As of 8am today, there were 359 people with Covid-19 in hospital, with 32 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

The number of people in ICU is 87, down five from yesterday.

Chair of the NPHET Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group Professor Phillip Nolan has said while there is steady progress in all indicators for the disease there are some causes for concern and the National Public Health Emergency Team will be keeping an eye on these.

Speaking at the NPHET briefing, he said the number of cases per day has stabilised at around 50 recently and that NPHET would be monitoring this.

The decline is slower than in previous weeks and this is because of the new variant which is now dominant, he said.

The overall positivity rate is high, though it is going down, he added.