A FURTHER 462 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Ireland, the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) has said this evening.

NPHET said that a further 39 people with Covid-19 have died.

This brings the Covid-19 death toll to 4,396 and the total number of confirmed cases to 221,649. 

Of the cases notified today:

• 224 are men / 236 are women
• 69% are under 45 years of age
• The median age is 31 years old
• 207 in Dublin, 29 in Cork, 26 in Meath, 20 in Kildare, 18 in Galway and the remaining 162 cases are spread across all other counties. **

As of 8am today, 460 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 107 are in ICU. There were 26 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

As of March 01, 446,474 doses of vaccine have been administered in Ireland:

• 303,550 people have received their first dose
• 142,924 people have received their second dose

Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said: “The R number has at least remained stable and may even have decreased slightly, this is reflected in the week-on-week decline in cases that has been reported recently.”

“This represents an extraordinary effort over a very challenging nine week period that has brought us from 6,500 cases to under 600.”