524 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Ireland in the last 24 hours.
As of 8am today, 107 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 38 are in ICU.
There has been 19 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said; “NPHET is closely monitoring variants of concern, and are concerned about possible higher transmissibility of the so called Indian variant and its spread in other countries as well as early reports of its impact on vaccine effectiveness.
“The public are keeping the disease under control and the HSE is increasing the number of people vaccinated every day. But the variant may nevertheless pose a risk to the progress we have made. NPHET will keep a close eye on this as we move towards the end of May and consider the advice we need to provide to Government on any further easing of restrictions.”
It comes as three relatives absconded mandatory hotel quarantine earlier this week.
Officials have yet to track down the whereabouts of the trio after they fled from a hotel in Dublin 15 on Monday.
The relatives, understood to be Indian, left the premises at around 3pm on the day.
It is not known where they had arrived from or how many days they stayed at the hotel.
Gardai were alerted and confirmed they are now liaising with the State Liaison Officer in a bid to track them down. However, they have had no luck in finding them yet.
A garda spokesman added: "As the Department of Health are the lead agency in relation to the management of mandatory quarantining, An Garda Siochana will not be commenting further at this time."
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