While the EU and Ireland continue to experience supply issues with the vaccine, there's some positive news as the number of people in hospital continues to fall and remain at its lowest level since late December.
As of 8am today, there are currently 340 patients in hospital with Covid-19, the lowest level since 28 December.
On that note, here's the latest information on Covid-19 in Ireland today....
543 new cases and 16 more deaths
Earlier this evening, health authorities reported 16 more deaths related to Covid-19, while 543 new cases were confirmed.
Of the deaths, 3 occurred in March, 12 in February, and 1 in January.
The median age of those who died was 88 years and the age range was 59 – 96 years.
This means that there has now been a total of 4,534 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland, while 226,358 confirmed cases of the disease have been confirmed.
Of the cases notified today, 269 are men and 271 are women. 73% of the case are under 45-years-old and the average age is 29 years old
As of 8am today, 340 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 85 are in ICU. 15 additional hospitalisations occurred in the past 24 hours too.
The locations of today's new cases and the worst-hit counties
Given its population, it's no surprise to see that Dublin has the highest amount of new cases with 235. Elsewhere, Kildare (50), Donegal (39), Meath (31), and Galway (28) all recorded a high number of cases.
The remaining 160 cases are spread across 20 other counties.
In terms of new cases during the last two weeks, Dublin (3,158), Kildare (467), Meath (412), Limerick (323) and Galway (314) all register.
However, the 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population doesn't reflect well on Longford (437.9), Offaly (351.5), Dublin (234.4), Meath (211.2) and Kildare (209.9).
The following is a look at today’s cases, the 5-day moving average of new cases, the 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and the total amount of new cases in the last 14 days (as of midnight 12 March 2021).
Vaccine update
As of March 10, 570,391 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland; 409,662 people have received their first dose and 160,729 people have received their second dose.
Earlier today, AstraZeneca confirmed further shortfalls in their planned supply of the vaccine to EU countries with Ireland set to get 45,000 fewer doses than scheduled.
The pharmaceutical company said that blamed production problems and export restrictions for the latest shortfall.
In a statement that was made to AFP, they said: "Unfortunately, export restrictions will reduce deliveries in the first quarter, and are likely to affect deliveries in the second quarter.
AstraZeneca started delivery of the vaccine to the EU in February and still aims to deliver 100 million doses in the first half of 2021.
Of this, 30 million are due to be delivered in the first quarter.
AstraZeneca had initially agreed to supply three times as many doses in the first quarter, and 180 million doses in the second quarter alone.
Elsewhere, RTE is reporting that AstraZeneca's new aim of supplying 30 million doses of-19 vaccine to the EU by the end of March is reliant on the EU's drug regulator approving supplies from a factory in the Netherlands, an internal document showed.
Dr Glynn's message
During a message that was shared on Friday, Dr Glynn thanked the Irish public for the work and sacrifices they've made but issued a warning.
"Despite this progress, we remain in a precarious position. We are dealing with essentially a new virus versus what we were dealing with in 2020. It is much more transmissible. Our daily incidence is twice what it was in early December and we've seen a stalling in the progress that we have been making over recent days. We've seen an increase in referrals from GPs this week.
"We've seen an increase in mobility and in the number of people going into work over the last fortnight. On top of that, the number of people in hospital, while it has reduced, is still approximately the same as it was during the peak in November," he said.
