While there was no deaths reported tonight, there are some causes for “concern”.
There have been no new deaths reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre today.
The HPSC has been notified of an additional 582 cases of Covid-19.
There has now been a total of 4,566 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland, and 228,796 confirmed cases.
Professor Philip Nolan, chair of the NPHET Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, revealed during Thursday’s Department of Health briefing that Covid-19 case counts are “static”.
He stated other key indicators such as the 5 and 7-day average case counts and the 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 have “plateaued” too.
Professor Nolan said he was concerned about the number of admissions to hospital per day also remaining static at between 20 and 25 since the beginning of March.
On the reason for this, he explained: “From the evidence, you can quite clearly trace that stasis, that relatively constant case count over the last 10 days to an increase in mobility and congregation and social mixing which began towards the end of February into early March”.
In more positive news, the numbers in hospital and intensive care continue to decline.
Meanwhile, week on week, the number of deaths being confirmed per day is decreasing which Professor Nolan called “welcome”.
Of the cases notified today 290 are men and 291 are women.
74% are under 45 years of age with the median age being 32 years old.
262 are in Dublin, 41 are in Galway, 34 are in Meath, 24 are in Kildare, 23 are in Waterford and the remaining 198 are spread across 20 other counties.
As of 8am today, 345 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 83 are in ICU.
24 additional hospitalisations occurred in the past 24 hours.
As of March 15, 620,580 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland.
455,182 people have received their first dose and 165,398 people have received their second dose.
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