LAST UPDATE | 9 Apr 2020

THE NUMBER OF confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland now sits at 6,074 while the number of people who have died from coronavirus-related illnesses has reached 235.

The figures were released by the Department of Health last evening. 

The Government, on the advice of the National Public Health Emergency Team, is expected to extend the existing restrictions on movement for a number of weeks over the coming days.

Meanwhile, gardaí have established fixed checkpoints across the country to discourage members of the public from travelling to their holiday homes for the Easter weekend. 

Here are today’s Covid-19 main points: 

• There are now 224 people in ICU with the Covid-19 disease, and the median age of the 25 additional people who died in the past 24 hours was 80.
• Ireland’s Covid-19 welfare supports could cost the government nearly €5 billion in three months, according to a new report from the Economic & Social Research Institute (ESRI). 
• Minister for Health Simon Harris has said that the Covid-19 restrictions are set to be extended for at least a “few more weeks”.
• Debenhams is closing all of its Irish stores and will go into liquidation.
• Dublin, Galway and Waterford councils have reported an increase in reports of illegal dumping during the current health crisis. 
• It will cost €50,000 each day the Dáil sits at Dublin’s Convention Centre and a once-off €110,000 expense to install microphones in the venue, due to the inability for all TDs to social distance at Leinster House. 
• Trinity College Dublin and AIB are set to establish a research hub on campus to accelerate an immunology project aimed at tackling the Covid-19 coronavirus. 
• The Airports Council International has said passenger travel during the month of March fell by 60% and that restoring air transport will be a ‘cornerstone’ of economic recovery when the world emerges from the Covid-19 emergency. 
• A new ‘My Heroes’ campaign has launched today allowing members of the public post messages of support about frontline workers in healthcare, defence and other sectors.
• Transparency International Ireland has published guidance on whistleblowing for workers and guidance for employers in relation to wrongdoing, ethical misconduct or health and safety risks in the workplaceduring the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Staff of the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital gathered this morning to applaud the Irish public for staying at home and helping to slow the spread of Covid-19.
• The Government has added 850 new beds to direct provision centres over the past two weeks to alleviate issues around the ability to adhere to social distancing rules as well as setting up a dedicated phone line for Direct Provision centre staff to help implement self-isolation measures. 

Here are today’s Covid-19 main international points:  

• The IMF is warning that we could be heading towards a major recession. Today, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva warned that coronavirus is causing an economic crisis unlike any in the past century. “We anticipate the worst economic fallout since the Great Depression,” she said. 
• Italy’s prime minister has warned that the European project could fail as a result of the pandemic if the debt burden form the Covid-19 outbreak is not shared among member states. 
• British ministers have raised the prospect of coronavirus restrictions extending beyond three weeks, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson spent a third night in intensive care.
• Over 700 additional hospital deaths have been confirmed in England. 
• Covid-19 could push over half a billion people into poverty, the charity Oxfam has warned.
• Aggressive control measures appear to have halted the first wave of coronavirus in areas outside Hubei province in China, research suggests.