There have been eight further COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland, health bosses have confirmed.
That brings the total number of deaths in the country since the coronavirus pandemic began to 2,018.
And there have been 330 new cases of the virus announced today, with 99 of those in Dublin.
So far, there have been 69,802 total COVID-19 cases confirmed in Ireland.
Of the cases announced today:
- 171 are men / 155 are women
- 64% are under 45 years of age
- The median age is 37 years old
- 99 in Dublin, 28 in Cork, 26 in Louth, 25 in Meath, 21 in Donegal and the remaining 131 cases are spread across 20 other counties.
As of 2pm today 283 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 33 are in ICU. 13 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Paschal Donohoe has warned that Ireland needs to "look beyond Christmas itself" amid calls for the Government to open the country back up for the festive period.
In a blow to those hoping that Ireland can get down to Level Two in December – meaning pubs and restaurants could reopen in a meaningful way – the Finance Minister said Ireland needs to think about its "medium-term goal" when it comes to the spread of the virus.
The Fine Gael TD said Ireland "is making progress in beating this disease", but admitted: "We're just not in as good a place as we would hope to be."
Yesterday, NPHET warned that Ireland has "slipped" in keeping the number of coronavirus cases down and needs to catch up with the last week of progress it has lost.
The R number has risen from 0.5 to between 0.7 and 0.9, bringing it close to the vital number 1 that we need to keep it below to stop the rate of spread increasing.
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