James Cox
The deputy chief medical officer has urged people not to buy cans or takeaway pints and meet up with friends this St Patrick's Day.
Dr Ronan Glynn says the levels of infection in the community remain too high.
It comes as a further 575 new Covid-19 cases have been confirmed this evening and no new deaths.
In the South East, Tipperary confirmed the third highest case figure last night with 41 new cases.
That figure was followed by 20 in Carlow, 11 in Wexford, 8 in Waterford and less than 5 in Kilkenny.
Dr Glynn urged people not to congregate to celebrate over the coming days.
He said: “We do not want people to be congregating over pints, we don't want people to be meeting up indoors. We don't want people to be buying cans and meeting up and drinking them on St Patrick's Day.
“We're giving the message because we know what will happen if people meet up, some of those people will end up in hospital. Some of those people will die, none of us want that to happen, particularly because those same people could be vaccinated over the coming weeks.”
Of the cases notified today:
- 289 are men/282 are women.
- 73 per cent are under 45 years of age.
- The median age is 30 years old.
- 232 are in Dublin, 48 in Meath, 41 in Tipperary, 38 in Kildare, 30 in Galway and the remaining 186 cases are spread across 20 other counties.
- As of 8am today, 360 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 85 are in ICU. 25 additional Covid-19 cases have been recorded in Irish hospitals in the past 24 hours.
As of March 12th, 606,904 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland.
- 443,092 people have received their first dose.
- 163,812 people have received their second dose.
Pausing the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in Ireland “was the right thing to do”, a senior Government adviser has said.
Professor Karina Butler said the use of the vaccine has been paused in an “abundance of caution”.
'Slight deferral'.
“We and other countries — the Netherlands, Germany, Italy — have paused, and it is just a pause, the use of AstraZeneca,” she said.
“It is about a slight deferral to make sure that we are doing the right thing, using appropriately and giving it to the right people.”
Earlier, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said 30,000 people due to receive the AstraZeneca jab this week will have their vaccinations rescheduled in the next few weeks.
