Statement from the National Public Health Emergency Team - Sunday 11 April

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 2 additional deaths related to COVID-19.

1 of these deaths occurred in March, and 1 occurred in April.

There has been a total of 4,785 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight Saturday 10 April, the HPSC has been notified of 303 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

There has now been a total of 240,945* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

(*Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 1 confirmed case. The figure of 240,945 confirmed cases reflects this.)

Of the cases notified today:

• 167 are men and 135 are women
• 75% are under 45 years of age
• the median age is 32 years old

As of 8am today, 213 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 53 are in ICU. There have been 7 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

As of last Friday (9 April) there have been 1,045,919 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered in Ireland:

• 735,997 people have received their first dose
• 309,922 people have received their second dose

Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn, Department of Health, said: “There are many reasons for hope as we head into a new week;

1 - This is the lowest number of daily cases reported since mid December. People’s efforts continue to make a real difference; by keeping our social contacts low we are making it much harder for COVID-19 to spread

2 - This morning we had the lowest number of people newly hospitalised with COVID-19 since the end of November

3 - Last week the millionth vaccine was given and this week should see a step-change in the number of doses administered

4 - All of our children are going back to school tomorrow

5 - From tomorrow we can travel within our county

“If we can maintain this progress, vaccines and the basic public health measures with which we are all so familiar are our way out of this pandemic. In the meantime;

1 - Please continue to work from home where possible. Please do not take our children returning to school tomorrow as a signal to return to the workplace

2 - Avoid mixing indoors with people from other households

3 - Even if meeting outdoors please watch your distance and only meet up with people from one other household at a time

4 - If you have any symptoms of COVID-19 isolate and contact your GP to arrange a free test

5 - Remember you are not properly protected until 2 weeks after your second COVID-19 vaccination.”

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community including daily data on Ireland’s COVID-19 Vaccination Programme.

• The 5-day moving average is 410.