PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS have confirmed 1,432 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.

As of 8am today there were 272 patients with Covid-19 in hospital, including 63 in ICU.

Yesterday, there were 1,423 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed. 286 people were in hospital with the illness and 63 in ICU.

There has been a total of 5,209 deaths related to Covid-19 notified in Ireland. This includes 30 deaths newly notified in the past week since last Wednesday.

Dr Tony Holohan said that the data suggests that the reopening of schools has not led to an increase in transmission of Covid-19 amongst school-going children or more widely across the population.

“This is good news for students, parents and all those involved in the education of our children. As always, we will keep disease transmission in the population under review, but given the importance of education for our children we feel that now is the right time to evolve our approach to the public health management of Covid-19 in educational settings.”