The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has been notified of five additional deaths related to COVID-19. There has now been a total of 2,102 deaths related to the virus in Ireland.
Elsewhere, the HPSC has confirmed 227 confirmed new cases of COVID-19 in the Republic of Ireland. The latest update brings the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland to 74,900.
As of 2pm on Wednesday, December 9, 224 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 38 are in ICU.
There has also been 4 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Of those 227 people, 64% are under 45 years of age, with the average age at 37-years-old. 98 are men while 129 are women.
Speaking about today's new cases, Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: “Today we have seen 8 new admissions to ICU, the most in a 24 hour period since the spring time. COVID-19 is still an extremely infectious disease which has the potential to lead to hospitalisation and even ICU admissions.
“Ireland has managed to suppress COVID-19 to the lowest incidence levels in the EU in recent weeks. We have managed to keep up our safe behaviours and worked to protect each other throughout the pandemic.
“If we do not continue to suppress the disease through the actions we have learned over recent months, we will very quickly see a surge in infections leading to an increase in hospitalisations, ICU admissions and, tragically, deaths. We are actively planning to begin vaccinating people in early 2021. We cannot afford to drop our guard now.”
Once again, Dublin has the highest number of new cases with 70 people diagnosed. Elsewhere, Donegal continues to provide new cases with 26 people recently contracting the virus.
In terms of the remaining new cases, Limerick has reported 19 people infected while Louth and Kilkenny (both 14 each) are also reasons for concern.
As for the remaining 84 cases, they're spread across 17 other counties.
On the opposite end of things, Clare, Sligo, Westmeath, and Leitrim all reported zero cases during today's update.
Here's the breakdown of today's new cases on a county-by-count basis:
Donegal - 26
Kilkenny - 14
Louth - 14
Limerick - 19
Monaghan - 5
Carlow - <5
Wicklow - <5
Dublin - 70
Tipperary <5
Longford <5
Waterford - 8
Mayo - 7
Offaly - <5
Cavan - 7
Galway - 10
Laois - <5
Roscommon - <5
Kildare - 7
Meath - 10
Clare - 0
Sligo - 0
Cork - 5
Kerry - <5
Wexford - 7
Westmeath - 0
Leitrim - 0
