A FURTHER 507 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Ireland, the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) has said this evening.

In a statement, NPHET said that 10 new deaths had been reported.

The total number of confirmed cases of the virus in Ireland is now 229,306. There have been a total of 4,576 death related to Covid-19 here to date.

Of the deaths confirmed today, nine occurred in March and one remains under investigation. 

The median age of those who died was 75 and the age range was between 45–88 years.

In terms of the new cases, 70% relate to people under 45 years of age with 216 in Dublin, 40 in Kildare, 29 in Galway, 24 in Offaly, 18 in Tipperary and the remaining 180 cases are spread across 20 other counties.

As of 8am today, 336 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 87 are in ICU up four from yesterday, with 43 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours. 

As of Tuesday, 632,359 vaccine doses have been administered, of which 463,497 are single doses with 168,862 people fully vaccinated.  

NPHET are due to provide a briefing shortly on Ireland’s vaccination programme which is expected to focus on the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine following the green light from the European Medicines Agency yesterday.