"Today we have seen 8 new admissions to ICU, the most in a 24 hour period since the spring time.”

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has been notified of five additional deaths related to Covid-19. The HPSC has been notified of 227 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland. 70 of those cases are in Dublin, 26 in Donegal, 19 in Limerick,14 in Louth, 14 in Kilkenny and the remaining 84 cases are spread across 17 other counties. As of 2pm on Wednesday, 224 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 38 are in ICU. There have been 14 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours. Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: “Today we have seen 8 new admissions to ICU, the most in a 24 hour period since the spring time.” “Covid-19 is still an extremely infectious disease which has the potential to lead to hospitalisation and even ICU admissions. “Ireland has managed to suppress Covid-19 to the lowest incidence levels in the EU in recent weeks. We have managed to keep up our safe behaviours and worked to protect each other throughout the pandemic. “If we do not continue to suppress the disease through the actions we have learned over recent months, we will very quickly see a surge in infections leading to an increase in hospitalisations, ICU admissions and, tragically, deaths. “We are actively planning to begin vaccinating people in early 2021. We cannot afford to drop our guard now.”