Covid: Ireland's five-day moving average jumps from 466 to 545 in four days

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 16 additional deaths related to Covid-19.

Three deaths occurred in March, 12 in February and one in January.

The median age of those who died was 88 years and the age range was 59 – 96 years.

There has been a total of 4,534 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight Friday, the HPSC was notified of 543 new confirmed cases, bringing the total to 226,358.

They include 12 in Mayo, which has now registered 167 new cases in the past two weeks.

It gives the county a 14-day incidence rate of 128 -below the national average of 155.3.

The rise in cases this week has resulted in the country's five-day moving average rise from 499 last Tuesday to 545 tonight, a matter of concern for public health officials.

Of the other cases notified today:

269 are men and 271 are women.

73% are under 45 years of age.

The median age is 29 years old.

235 in Dublin, 50 in Kildare, 39 in Donegal, 31 in Meath, 28 in Galway and the remaining 160 cases are spread across 20 other counties.

As of 8 a.m. today, 340 Covid-19 patients were hospitalised, 85 in ICU. There have been 15 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Numbers of people vaccinated

As of last Wednesday (March 10), there have been 570,391 doses of Covid-19 vaccine administered in Ireland:

409,662 people have received their first dose.

160,729 people have received their second dose.