A FURTHER FOUR people with Covid-19 have sadly died, the Department of Health has said, and an additional 57 cases of the disease have also been confirmed in Ireland.

That brings the total number of deaths from people with Covid-19 to 1,608, and the total number of confirmed cases to 24,639.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre’s analysis of the total confirmed cases as of Friday 22 May shows:

• The gender breakdown of confirmed cases shows 57% are female and 43% are male
• The median age of confirmed cases is 48 years
• 3,222 cases (13%) have been hospitalised
• Of those hospitalised, 394 cases have been admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU)
• 7,819 cases are associated with healthcare workers
• Dublin has the highest number of cases at 11,873 (48% of all cases) followed by Cork with 1,428 cases (6%) and then Kildare with 1,392 cases (6%)
• Of those for whom transmission status is known: community transmission accounts for 59%, close contact accounts for 38%, travel abroad accounts for 3%

Reacting to the announcement of the figures this evening, Health Minister Simon Harris said that in eight of the last nine days, “the number of new Covid-19 cases has been below 100″.

Today’s new cases [is] 57. This progress is thanks to YOU and your family. We now need to maintain it and work to carefully find ways of living alongside the virus by following our plan. Stay safe. We will get there.

At a HSE briefing this morning, HSE Chief Operations Officer Anne O’Connor said that the number of people attending emergency departments across the country is slowly increasing, as fears about Covid-19 begin to fade.