22 of the new cases were actually confirmed earlier in the week.
On Saturday evening, the National Public Health Emergency Team announced that five more people had sadly died due to Covid-19 in Ireland.
Taking into account five denotifications of death, Ireland's known Covid-19 death toll now stands at 1,705.
Additionally, 46 further cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed among the population, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Republic of Ireland to 25,295.
The number of new cases will come as a shock to many, after many days of single-digit increases, and an increase of 13 yesterday.
However, the NPHET has clarified that 22 of the samples announced today were taken on Monday (n=12) and Tuesday (n=10), and would normally have been reported on Thursday and Friday and "for technical reasons as part of normal laboratory practice at the National Virus Reference Laboratory (NVRL), they are being reported today."
As such, contact tracing for these cases had begun before
This essentially means that on Thursday when eight new cases were announced, there were actually a total of 20 to report. On Friday when they announced 13, there were actually 23. And today, the number of corresponding new cases is actually 24.
Speaking today, Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, clarified: "Today’s increase in notifications of COVID-19 is not an increase in the daily incidence of the disease.
"When the cases are analysed according to the date the samples were taken, it shows that they were spread out over a number of days. All the indicators of the disease are stable or reducing. We will continue to closely monitor these every day."
