HEALTH OFFICIALS HAVE confirmed an additional 16,986 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland today.

As of 8am, 804 people were in hospital with the virus, 93 of whom are in intensive care.

Yesterday, there were 17,071 cases of the virus reported, with 717 people in hospital with Covid-19 and 87 in ICU.

The latest figures come in the wake of warnings from NPHET that the PCR testing system has been overwhelmed by the volume of the disease in the country, and that the true volume of cases is up to 40% higher.

Changes to guidelines around who should seek a PCR test were announced last Thursday in a bid to ease the pressure on the system, including advice for symptomatic people in younger age groups to instead take regular antigen tests and only seek a PCR test if they receive a positive antigen result first.

The daily case number figures released each evening are likely to give an underestimate of the level of Covid-19 in Ireland compared to earlier periods in the pandemic when the daily figures were much lower.