There has been one further death and 270 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed in the State this evening, according to the Department of Health.
In the South East, Kilkenny recorded 9 new cases and Tipperary has confirmed 8 new cases.
While Waterford, Wexford and Carlow have confirmed less than 5 cases of coronavirus in each county.
As of 2pm today 291 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised in the Republic, of which 39 are in ICU. 12 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Another 471 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Northern Ireland, bringing the total of new cases in the region over the last seven days to 3,921.
A further 10 deaths were also reported as Stormont ministers met to discuss the extension of a four-week circuit-break lockdown due to expire on Thursday.
It is expected some restrictions will be extended for two weeks while others will be eased, with an announcement likely later this evening.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said the announcement that a vaccine for Covid-19 was more than 90 per cent effective based on initial data is a "good reason to be optimistic”.
Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE are the first drugmakers to show successful data from a large-scale clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine.
The EU has confirmed that a contract for 300 million doses of the vaccine will soon be signed.
The world could be in a position to "fundamentally change" the direction of the Covid-19 crisis by March due to the development, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The pandemic has hit another sobering milestone, with more than 50 million positive cases worldwide since the pandemic began.
More than 1.2 million people have died from the disease worldwide.
