66 further Covid cases in Mayo, 1,718 nationally and 13 deaths

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 13 additional deaths related to Covid-19.

There has been a total of 2,226 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight on Tuesday, the HPSC registered 1,718 new confirmed cases, brining the total to 90,157.

They include 66 in Mayo, now with a 14-day incidence rate of 209.2 after recording 273 cases in the past two weeks.

The county remains below the national average of 272.7.

Of the cases notified today:

853 are men and 863 are women

66% are under 45 years of age

the median age is 34 years old

358 in Dublin, 164 in Cork, 155 in Louth, 150 in Donegal, 112 in Galway and the remaining 779 cases are spread across all other counties

As of 2 p.m. today, 455 Covid-19 patients were hospitalised, of which 37 are in ICU.

There have been 60 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, "Ireland is no longer in a containment phase and is once again in a mitigation phase.

"Given the current levels of transmission in the community, every individual should consider themselves potentially infectious.

"It is essential that we all limit our contacts to our own household now, restrict our movements and do not give Covid-19 any further opportunities to spread.

"Everyone needs to stay at home other than for essential work or care. This is not the time to be visiting other houses."

Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said: "The reproduction number remains very high and is currently estimated at 1.6 – 1.8.

"The growth rate is estimated to be 7-10% per day with a doubling time of 7-10 days.

"We must take action immediately to prevent an almost unimaginable scenario, where case numbers in 7 to 10 days time are twice what they are today. Stay at home."