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The Health Department was notified of 1,296 new cases of Covid-19 today.
There have now been 85,394 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.
There have been six other deaths, bringing the total number of Covid-19-related deaths to 2,200.
Medical Director Dr. Tony Holohan said: “For the second day in a row, we reported over a thousand confirmed cases of Covid-19.
“Within a few weeks of easing the measures in early December, we have now returned to the very high levels of Covid-19 circulating in the community that we had not seen since the peak of the second wave of this disease. This is very on.”
“While today is a positive day with the arrival of the Pfizer / BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, it does not mean that we can relax our compliance with public health measures.”
“We should continue to stay home, avoid social contact whenever possible, avoid visiting friends and family, and not having visitors in our homes,” said Dr. Holohan.
Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health has reported another 20 deaths.
It brings the official death toll from the Health Department to 1,271.
Another 998 cases of Covid-19 have also been confirmed in the last 48 hours.
The latest figures for the North come as the region enters a new six-week coronavirus lockdown.
A night curfew is also being imposed for the first week.
The restrictions, which took effect one minute after midnight, will be reviewed after four weeks.
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The latest HSE figures show that there were 260 people with Covid-19 in hospitals in the Republic at 8 pm last night, four more than the night before.
Hospitals with the highest number of patients include Beaumont with 52, Letterkenny University Hospital with 26, and Tallaght University Hospital with 22.
The figures also show that as of last night, there were 25 Covid-19 patients in intensive care, with 13 of them on ventilators.
There were 64 intensive care beds available.
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