Five new cases of Covid 19 have been confirmed locally.
Four people have tested positive in Carlow, while one new case was reported in Kilkenny over the past 24 hours.
It means the two-county local total is now 544, with 185 positive test results in Carlow, while the total for Kilkenny now stands at 359.
68 new cases were confirmed in the Republic yesterday. There have now been 26,712 positive tests nationwide.
82% of yesterday’s new cases were under the age of 45.
There were no new deaths yesterday, so the death toll remains at 1,772.
It comes as the wearing of face coverings in retail settings becomes mandatory – from today anyone who refuses to wear one will face fines of up to 2,500 euro and time in prison.
The rule will not apply to children under 13 or anyone who can’t wear one due to physical or mental incapacity.
Retail staff will be required to wear one unless there’s a partition or space of two metres between them and customers.
Duncan Smith from Retail Excellence says retailers have the power to call Gardai over non compliance, but don’t expect they’ll have to:
“That is within the regulation” he confirmed. “We can call the guards and they can deal with it for us, but absolutely we don’t want to go down that route. We’re expecting the public’s compliance on this, and we’re expecting that’s going to be the case”.
