HEALTH OFFICIALS HAVE confirmed there are no new deaths and 11 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland. 

The figures were released at a briefing from the Department of Health this evening. 

It brings the total number of confirmed deaths from the virus in Ireland to 1,746. It also brings the total number of confirmed cases in Ireland to 25,638. 

The Government along with health officials are continuing to monitor the number of new cases on a daily basis as cases rose in the past two weeks. 

Speaking tonight, Acting CMO Dr Ronan Glynn said: “We’re concerned and as we said last week, we’re not sounding an alarm but we’re certainly watching this really, really closely. The five day average for the past five days is 20 and that’s an increase on what we’ve seen.”

International travel is also under review at present ahead of plans to introduce a green list of countries from 20 July. 

“Form a health perspective, the measure is not banning the flights, the measures are for anyone who has to take a flight and people have to travel for a variety of reasons. 

“I don’t think it’s reasonable in the context of a pandemic that could go on for many months that we could shut down travel completely. 

“From a public health perspective, it’s very clear the less movement you have of people… the less spread of the disease there will be.”

On Government plans to introduce a green list, Glynn said the advice “remains to avoid all non-essential travel” but that they would not be “unduly concerned” about travel to countries where there is a similar level of disease suppression as in Ireland. 

He added that there are ongoing concerns for passengers entering Ireland from countries who may not be on the green list. 

Over the past 14 days, the total number of confirmed cases notified to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre is 165. Of those, some 41% were in males while 59% were in females. 

The median age is 31 years old and some 74% of these cases were under 45 years of age.

There were reported cases in 20 counties with 47% in Dublin, 16% in Kildare, and 6% in Wicklow. 

Some 12% of these 165 cases confirmed in the past two weeks were related to travel.