THERE ARE NOW just 190 patients with confirmed cases of Covid-19 being treated in hospital and 31 in ICU, the lowest figures since 10 October.
In the last 24 hours, there has been one admission to ICU while three patients have been discharged.
In hospitals, there have been 12 admissions and 12 discharges in the last 24 hours.
In the last seven days, there have been 79,527 Covid-19 tests carried out, with a positive rate of 2.5% over seven days.
A total of 2,101,317 tests have been carried out since the pandemic began, with a positive rate of 3.8%.
Yesterday, public health officials announced that the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 had risen to 75,507, and the death toll to 2,120.
This comes after 313 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed yesterday, with an additional three deaths.
With Christmas around the corner, NPHET have issued warnings for people not to get a Covid-19 test as a protective measure before going to visit family members over the holidays.
Speaking on Thursday evening, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said that people should instead take precautionary measures and keep a small social group.
“Quite simply, we wouldn’t advise that as a protective measure. We’ve said all along that a test is only as good as the point at which the test is taken if it’s taken outside of a particular context,” said Glynn.
Chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, Dr Philip Nolan reinforced that point earlier today, telling the public that being tested when you don’t have symptoms is unnecessary and can be detrimental.
“Simply put, if you don’t have symptoms the risk of a false negative test is too high,” said Nolan, speaking on RTÉ’s Saturday with Katie Hannon.
“Going and getting yourself a test to reassure yourself you don’t have Covid, is pretty much useless as a way of reducing the risk.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say