The national 14-day incidence rate of Covid-19 has fallen to 9% of its peak in January.
It now stands at 148 cases per 100,000 people, with the figure not being below 100 since December 16th.
Kilkenny has the country’s second-lowest rate at 47.4 while Carlow’s has risen again to 142.3 making it the nation’s eighth-highest.
It’s as 17 more deaths were reported last evening with 557 new cases, 10 in Carlow and six in Kilkenny.
Hospitals
In public hospitals last night, there were 343 people with the disease while there were 82 patients in Intensive Care.
One of these was in the unit at St Luke’s General for Carlow and Kilkenny, among seven there with the virus with one further suspected case.
While three were in critical care at University Hospital Waterford with 19 others with the disease there after two new admissions while three others are showing symptoms.
Professor Anthony Staines says even with high vaccine uptake among the very elderly, there are still hundreds of thousands of people at high risk of serious illness.
Vaccines
The European Medicines Agency will meet later to decide whether any extra precautions are needed to use the AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19.
A dozen countries stopped using it as a temporary precaution following a small cluster of blood clotting cases which emerged last weekend.
Ireland’s vaccines board called a halt to the use of the AstraZeneca product here on Sunday after the European Medicines Agency launched a rapid review.
It followed a notification from Norway that Four patients who had received it later suffered blood clots in the brain, one of whom died.
It means 30,000 vaccine doses which would have been administered this week remain in storage.
The EMA says “many thousands” of Europeans develop blood clots every year naturally.
It says the number which took place after people got the AZ shot are no higher than expected — and the protection it offers against Covid-19 far outweighs the risk of any side-effects.
Its safety committee will meet later this morning to make a final decision on whether any extra precautions need to be taken.
It’ll brief the press on its findings this afternoon.
Meanwhile, 617,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered in Ireland, according to latest figures.
The numbers from the Department of Health are correct up to Sunday, and show 452,000 people have been given a first dose of an injection, while 164,000 have been fully inoculated against the disease.
Of the total vaccines given out more than 460,000 are Pfizer Bio-N-Tech, while 130,000 have been AstraZeneca.
Elsewhere
Tensions are rising between the British government and the EU over the bloc’s threat to stop vaccine exports.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says Article 122 of the EU Treaty may be used, up to and including seizing facilities and suspending patent rights.
The emergency clause can only be invoked where there’s “severe difficulties” in the supply of products.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says he expects the EU to allow contracts be honoured.
But Fine Gael’s European Affairs spokesperson Neal Richmond says it’s the right call from the Commission.
Meanwhile, a large-scale study in Demark has found that Covid-19 re-infections are rare, but more common for people over the age of 65.
It found older people only had 47% protection against repeat infection, compared with 80% for younger people.
Researchers say their findings highlight the importance of measures to protect elderly people in the pandemic, including social distancing and priority for the vaccine.
