NEED TO CATCH up? TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of today’s news.

IRELAND

HSE CEO Paul Reid responding to media questions at a briefing today. Leon Farrell / RollingNews.ie Leon Farrell / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

• Health officials have confirmed that a further 26 patients have died as a result of Covid-19 in Ireland.
• The HSE has ranked some 75 long-term residential facilities, such as nursing homes and mental health residential care centres, in the ‘red’ zone and at ‘significant risk’ due to the Covid-19 pandemic in Ireland. 
• The number of people accessing mental health supports in Ireland has increased dramatically during the pandemic.
• The HSE has insisted that it will be able to carry out 100,000 Covid-19 tests per week by mid-May. 
• A vaccine for Covid-19 is still likely to be 18 months away, the Irish Pharmaceutical Health Association has said. 
• The Irish Dental Association has accused the government of “ignoring the effective collapse of the dental profession in Ireland”. 
• Gardaí have seized €2.5 million worth of cocaine in an operation targeting organised criminals in the capital. 

INTERNATIONAL

Runners on the Mall in central London, at the finish of the London Marathon course, which was postponed to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. Dominic Lipinski / PA Images Dominic Lipinski / PA Images / PA Images

#SPAIN: The country’s daily coronavirus death toll dropped to 288, the lowest since 20 March, as it eased its lockdown to allow children outside for the first time in six weeks.

#NORTH KOREA: Satellite imagery has found a train likely belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as speculation continues over his health, according to a website specialising in studies of the country.

#INDONESIA: One Indonesian politician has decided to scare lockdown rulebreakers straight by locking them in a “haunted house”.

PARTING SHOT

What if Covid-19 isn’t the biggest threat to humanity? That’s the cheery thought contained in this piece from The Guardian, which suggests that there could be worse to come than a pandemic. 

One expert “believes the next century will be a dangerously precarious one. If we make the right decisions, he foresees a future of unimaginable flourishing. If we make the wrong ones, he maintains that we could well go the way of the dodo and the dinosaurs, exiting the planet for good”.

So, er, things could be worse apparently.