Kenneth Fox
A further 10,414 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed this evening by the Department of Health.
This includes 5,605 positive PCR tests and 4,809 positive antigen tests that were uploaded through the HSE portal.
The department said there has been a total of 6,136 deaths related to Covid-19 notified in Ireland. This includes 49 deaths newly notified in the past week (since last Wednesday).
As of 8am today, 824 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised and there 79 in ICU.
Meanwhile, the Irish Examiner reports the number of Covid-19 patients in hospital has dropped by almost 18 per cent over the last week.
Two weeks ago, 997 Covid patients were being treated in hospital, down from an earlier peak of 1,063 on January 10th.
Also this morning, there were 74 Covid patients in intensive care, five fewer than yesterday and the lowest overall daily total recorded since November.
Infectious diseases consultant in Beaumont Hospital, Eoghan de Barra, says the majority of patients in hospitals with the coronavirus are not very sick.
"Even these numbers over-represent the severity of it because the majority of those patients happily are fully vaccinated and are not particularly sick with Covid itself," he said.
"So I think there's going to be a long tail to hospitalised numbers but the key thing again will be just how sick they are with Covid."
The infectious disease society carried out a survey of almost half of all patients in hospital with Covid-19 and found that around 70% of them didn't require additional oxygen at the time.
"The vast majority of patients were not particularly ill and that continues to be the case, but there are still some becoming severely ill and some patients ending up in intensive care unit," Dr de Barra added.
