25 further deaths and 566 more cases of COVID-19 confirmed

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 25 additional deaths related to COVID-19.

Five deaths occurred in March, 13 occurred in February and six in occurred January or earlier.

There has been a total of 4,357 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight, Tuesday 2^nd March, the HPSC has been notified of 566 confirmed cases of COVID-19; eight of these are in Kerry.

There is now a total of 221,189 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today:

• 280 are men / 284 are female
• 68% are under 45 years of age
• The median age is 34 years old
• 233 in Dublin, 37 in Kildare, 30 in Meath, 25 in Donegal, 24 in Westmeath and the remaining 217 cases are spread across all other counties.

As of 8am today, 489 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 114 are in ICU. 29 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

As of 28^th February, 439,782 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland:

• 297,899 people have received their first dose
• 141,883 people have received their second dose

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community including daily data on Ireland’s COVID-19 Vaccination Programme.

Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health said: “Through the hard work and sacrifice of the vast majority of people, key disease indicators continue on a positive trajectory. However, we are still seeing outbreaks in the community, including those linked to extended families, workplaces and funerals. We need to keep up our guard against the B117 variant of COVID-19, which we know is dominant in Ireland at present and highly transmissible.

“Our willingness to stick with the public health advice in our daily routine has brought us the progress that we can see today. Together, through staying at home as much as possible, social distancing, hand washing and wearing face coverings, we can continue to drive down the spread of COVID-19.”

Today’s cases, 5-day moving average of new cases, 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and new cases in last 14 days (as of midnight 02 March 2021) (incidence rate based on Census 2016 county population)