PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS have confirmed 1,620 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.

As of 8am today there were 328 patients with Covid-19 in hospital, including 59 in ICU.

Yesterday, there were 1,292 new cases of Covid-19, 331 people in hospital with the illness and 52 in ICU.

Deaths are being announced weekly due to the HSE data breach in May – as of Wednesday, a total of 5,155 people have died with Covid-19 in Ireland.

It was confirmed this morning that Ireland’s Covid-19 vaccine roll-out has hit another major milestone as 90% of adults, aged 18-years or older, are now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

The Chair of Ireland’s taskforce on Covid-19 vaccinations Professor Brian MacCraith said that seven million inoculations will have been administered by the end of today.

“Please remember that vaccines need time to work; it requires 7-14 days to build your immunity after Dose 2,” MacCraith said.

As Ireland hits the 7 million milestone, the latest stats from the HSE show that 3.5 million people have received one vaccine and 3.25 million people are fully inoculated with two jabs. Over 234,000 people have received the single-dose Janssen shot.

The majority of people (71.4%) received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The AstraZeneca shot was administered to 17.1% of recipients while 8.1% of people got the Moderna jab and 3.4% received the Janssen vaccine.

Scientific evidence to date shows that vaccines against Covid-19 are overwhelmingly safe and that they reduce serious illness and rates of hospitalisation due to the virus.