HEALTH OFFICIALS HAVE confirmed an additional 17,071 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland today.

As of 8am, 717 people were in hospital with the virus, 87 of whom are in intensive care.

Yesterday, there were 23,281 cases of the virus reported, with 656 people in hospital with Covid-19 and 85 in ICU.

The latest figures come in the wake of warnings from NPHET that the PCR testing system has been overwhelmed by the volume of the disease in the country this week, and that the true volume of cases is up to 40% higher.

Changes to guidelines around who should seek a PCR test were announced on Thursday in a bid to ease the pressure on the system, including advice for symptomatic people in younger age groups to instead take regular antigen tests and only seek a PCR test if they receive a positive antigen result first.

The daily case number figures released each evening are likely to give an underestimate of the level of Covid-19 in Ireland compared to earlier periods in the pandemic when the daily figures were much lower.

The hospitalisation figures released each evening include details of people who were either admitted to hospital with Covid-19 or received a ‘detected’ result while in hospital.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said this week that over 90% of people in hospital and intensive care with Covid-19 are there for the management of the disease.

Less than 5% of those in hospital or intensive care have ‘incidental’ (asymptomatic, non-infectious) disease.