Some good news today is that County Donegal has gone 7 days now without any new cases of Covid 19.

Co.Sligo leads the way with no new cases reported in the last 12 days followed by Kerry who have had no cases in 9 days.

Nine more people have died from Covid-19 in Ireland. There have now been a total of  1,639 deaths related to the virus here.

There have also been a further 46 cases of coronavirus diagnosed, this brings the total number of cases to 24,841.

Professor Philip Nolan, chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group said: "All the indications are that the incidences of coronavirus in Ireland are stable or declining."

There are currently 47 people with Covid-19 in intensive care units with an average admission to ICU of "one to two people per day".

He said the level of disease in the community remains "very low" at around 50 cases per day. " Almost everything we see is astonishing stable," added Professor Nolan.

"Next week we will see figures that reflect the impact of Phase One measures on key disease spread indicators. It is our hope that the R (reproductive) number will remain below one and our progress is preserved."

Professor Nolan said healthcare workers remain at increased risk. At the peak, 1% of healthcare workers were ill with the virus. That has now reduced to around 0.1%.

The Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, said there have been 1,030 deaths in residential care facilities here or 63% of the total deaths.

He said 900 of these deaths were residents of nursing homes which represents 55% of all deaths.

"All the signs are that there is still widespread compliance with the restrictions," said Dr Holohan. "We hope that people will keep following our guidance."

Asked about the possibility of restrictions being eased in different parts of the country at different times, he said this was unlikely to work. "If, for example, pubs were to reopen in one county and not another, you can imagine what would happen!"

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