The Delta variant is being linked with different, more ‘flu-like’ symptoms to previous strains of coronavirus, including the Kent variant
Ireland hasn't seen anything like the rampant growth of the Delta variant in the UK which is the dominant strain there.
There has been a total of 188 cases of Delta variant in Ireland up to now.
Professor Philip Nolan said on Thursday: "It's reassuring that in recent weeks, the number of identified cases of the Delta variant is not increasing."
Ireland is aiming to keep Delta variant cases low as possible while the vaccination roll-out continues and society continues to reopen.
NPHET is continuing to closely monitor a rise in cases in Northern Ireland.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan previously labelled the Delta variant as a black cloud in a blue sky.
In the UK, the ZOE Covid Symptom Study recently said that symptoms of the now dominant Delta variant include a headache, sore throat, runny nose and fever.
These symptoms differ from those associated with previous variants of Covid-19.
Throughout the pandemic, the main symptoms of Covid have been described by the HSE as a new cough, shortness of breath, a fever, and loss of taste and smell.
However, the Delta variant seems to be 'acting differently' and is producing different symptoms in infected people.
The variant, first identified in India, is also tending to infect younger people who haven't had the vaccine yet.
The symptoms linked with the Delta variant so far are:
Headache
Sore throat
Runny nose
Fever
Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, and a researcher with the ZOE study, said in a YouTube briefing: “The number one symptom is a headache, then followed by a sore throat, runny nose and fever.”
The more "traditional" symptoms are less common, Mr Spector added, Mirror.co.uk reports.
He explained that in younger people, who have only had the vaccine offered to them this week, the Delta variant is often “more like a cold".
A loss of smell and taste are not as common symptoms anymore according to the study, and neither is a cough - but fevers are still likely.
There is growing concern that, due to the change in symptoms and similarity to a common cold, people may not realise they have Covid.
The CDC in America have updated their symptoms list, however, in Ireland or the UK no such change has been made.
The ZOE study is an app which collects ongoing, live data from four million users globally, which is then analysed by King’s College London.
Analysis of the data has shown how the virus is now “acting differently”.
Dr Abdul Ghafur, an infectious disease physician in India, told Bloomberg he is seeing more Covid-19 patients with diarrhoea.
The Delta variant is 60% more transmissible than the previous dominant strain, the Kent variant, and it is responsible for the final unlocking in Britain being pushed back until July.
The World Health Organisation said the Delta variant had been detected in more than 80 countries.
Two doses of a vaccine are said to be still effective against the new variant, however.
