A total of 4,141 new Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in Ireland today, while 443 people are currently being treated for the virus in hospital.
This marks a drop in the number of Covid cases of 94 in the last 24 hours, as well as a decrease of 27 people in hospital with the virus.
It is the lowest number of patients in hospital with the virus since mid-October.
Of those who are hospitalised for the virus, there were 108 being treated in ICUs around the country.
Yesterday’s figures saw 4,235 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 470 patients hospitalised, of which 105 were in ICU.
The latest figures were released by the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday evening.
In an accompanying statement the DOH wrote: “Following further data validation, the total number [of] Omicron cases confirmed through whole genome sequencing in Ireland to date has been revised down to 39 confirmed cases.”
This comes as the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly told the Dail on Thursday that 27% of new Covid cases in Ireland are now due to the Omicron strain.
This means the number of Omicron variant cases has doubled in the last few days, from 14% on Tuesday.
“Last week the Omicron variant made up about 1% of all new cases in Ireland. By the weekend it was up to 5%,” Donnelly said.
"By Tuesday we were reporting 14% of new cases were the Omicron variant... today 27% of all new cases" are Omicron.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan and NPHET members will meet today and are expected to recommend new measures to the Government.
It’s expected the body will advise that all close contacts of a confirmed case should restrict their movements.
A Cabinet meeting is also expected to be held on Friday.
