"We are now experiencing a considerable surge in cases and hospitalisations."

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 17 additional deaths related to Covid-19. The HPSC has said that 16 of these deaths occurred in January. 5,325 new cases of Covid-19 have also been reported in Ireland on Tuesday. 1,931 of the cases are in Dublin, 767 in Cork, 323 in Kildare, 322 in Limerick, 238 in Donegal and the remaining 1,744 cases are spread across all other counties. As of 2pm today, 840 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 76 are in ICU. There have been 102 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours. Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: “We are now experiencing a considerable surge in cases and hospitalisations. We can turn this around quickly if we stick to the measures we know worked last spring. “We have seen some early progress in that the average number of contacts per case has been dropping in recent days – but we need to continue this effort to limit as much as we can our contact with other people in the days and weeks ahead. “If we all stay home and keep to the public health advice, we can bring COVID-19 back under control - which ultimately will protect our essential services such as Health and Education and most importantly save lives.”