There have been another 47 deaths from Covid today with a further 1,466 cases confirmed today.
Of these cases, a total of 63 new cases were reported by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre as being in Donegal.
So far this month, there have been 878 deaths related to the virus.
The number of patients in ICU is 216, which is down one since yesterday.
The national incidence rate of the virus per 100,000 people is now 622 – it was 1,140.7 this day last week.
Ireland has administered a total of 161,500 vaccines to date, the HSE have said.
Meanwhile, close contacts of a confirmed Covid case will be referred for testing again from tomorrow.
The HSE put it on hold at the end of last year as the testing system struggled to cope with demand.
From tomorrow, close contacts of a confirmed case will receive a phone call and be referred to a Covid-19 test centre for a test on day five.
The Chief Medical Officer says close contacts should be tested twice as more capacity becomes available.
However, HSE chief executive Paul Reid says it will just be one test for now.
“It still will be at day five and we will assess that over the coming weeks in terms of when it is appropriate to revert back to a day zero and day seven test.
“Right now, we are sticking with a day five test.”
