Ireland passes one million confirmed Covid cases

A landmark day.

Ireland has officially passed the one million mark of confirmed Covid cases in the country. On Monday (10 January), 23,909 cases were confirmed in the country, bringing the total to 1,002,013. The current five-day moving average number of Covid cases in the country is over 20,000 a day. The sharp increase in case numbers can be attributed to the Omicron variant, which has accounted for the majority of cases since it's arrival in late 2021. More positive cases were confirmed in the country since Christmas than in all of 2020. HSE CEO Paul Reid has said that there is no sign yet that case numbers have peaked yet. He made the comments during an interview on RTÉ Radio 1's "Morning Ireland" programme on Monday. "It's certainly doesn't feel like it right now," he said. "I mean, I'll let NPHET do the modelling and predictions on what might happen on a case level, but on a hospital level, it doesn't feel like it (numbers peaking) yet. "That's the sense I'm getting from all of our teams, all across the services, all across the country. "Still seeing the hospitalisation cases coming through, thankfully steady in ICU. "As we are getting some staff back, we are losing some as well, but we would hope now over the coming days to see more staff coming back than going out and start to get some relief on it but it still doesn't feel like we've reached that peak from a staff impact or a hospitalisation impact," he added. Between 14,000 and 15,000 HSE staff are currently on sick leave or out due to being a Covid close contact. The government has brought in new regulations to help combat the rising case numbers, including making free antigen tests available for symptomatic under 40s. The first case of the virus was confirmed in Ireland in late February of 2020.