PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS have confirmed a further 1,335 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland, bringing the total number of cases to 191,182.

Additionally, the Department of Health has reported that 54 more people have died with Covid-19. Fifty of these deaths occurred in January. 

The median age of those who died is 85 years, and the age range is 55-96 years.

Today’s update brings the total number of Covid-19 deaths in Ireland to 3,120.

Of the cases notified today:

• 618 are in men and 711 are in women;
• 54% are in people under 45 years-of-age
• The median age is 43 years old;
• 437 cases were based in Dublin; 114 were in Cork; 78 were in Galway, 71 were in Meath; 61 were in Louth; and the remaining 574 cases were spread across all other counties.

As of 2pm today, 1,670 patients were in hospital with Covid-19, of whom 217 are in intensive care. There have been 81 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Commenting on today’s figures, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan outlined how stark the situation in Ireland continued to be.

“The current 14-day incidence remains more than double the peak incidence experienced during previous Level 5 measures in October, therefore, now is not the time to drop your guard and start to interact with people outside your household,” he said.

“The risk of transmission in the community remains very high. We must continue to work towards reducing incidence of disease and preventing further hospitalisations and deaths.”

Meanwhile, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has told a meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party this evening that the EU will take hard stance with AstraZeneca over the supply of its Covid-19 vaccine.

Varadkar told party members that he expected the company’s vaccine will be used here from the second week of February, with over 85s expected to be the first age-group to receive it through GPs initially.

He added that under current projections, the government expects 1.1 million people to be vaccinated by the end of March, rising to 2 million people by May.

With reporting from Christina Finn.