LAST UPDATE | 5 Mar 2021

EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you all the news you need to know as you start the day.

1. #STILLBIRTHS: Health officials say they have been made aware of four preliminary reports of stillbirths that are potentially associated with a complication of Covid-19 called Covid Placentitis.

2. #COVID: A further 462 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Ireland.

3. #HOSPITALS: The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has fallen to the lowest level since late December. 

4. #PASSPORTS: Parents who had to submit their own passports as part of the application for their child to get a passport may have to wait as long as six months to receive their own back.

5. #BREXIT: Brussels has warned it will launch legal action “very soon” following a move by the UK to unilaterally delay implementation of part of the Brexit deal relating to Northern Ireland.

6. #AUCKLAND: New Zealand will lift a Covid-19 lockdown on nearly two million people on Sunday.

7. #ASTRAZENECA: A shipment of a quarter-of-a-million AstraZeneca vaccines destined for Australia has been blocked from leaving the European Union.

8. #HEALTHCARE: The Irish healthcare system is failing transgender people and forcing them to go abroad for treatment, an activist has said.

9. #TSUNAMI: Tsunami warnings have been lifted across several South Pacific islands allowing tens of thousand of evacuees to return home.