Covid-19 cases increase by 93 with no new deaths reported

File photo. 

There have been 93 new cases of Covid-19 reported today, bringing the total number of confirmed cases since the outbreak began to 28,453.

The Department of Health has reported no further Covid-related deaths. There have been 1,777 deaths associated with the virus.

Of the new cases, 34 are in Dublin, seven are in Kildare six are in Donegal, six are in Laois, five are in Limerick, five are in Wexford and the remaining 30 cases are in Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Louth, Meath. Monaghan, Offaly, Tipperary, Westmeath and Wicklow.

"We continue to see a slow growth of Covid-19 in Ireland," said Dr Ronan Glynn.

The most effective action we can take to reduce the transmission rate of this virus is to reduce our number of close contacts. 

"If we do this and keep practicing the other safe behaviours by continuing to physical distance, avoid crowds, wash our hands, cover our coughs and sneezes, wear a face mask where appropriate and download the Covid Tracker app, we have a real chance of slowing the spread of the virus to where we want it to be."

The R-number is now between 1 and 1.2, which is an improvement on what we have seen recently but still not where we want to be, according to Professor Philip Nolan.

"While this is an improvement on what we have seen recently, it is still not where we want to be," he said.

We are still seeing growing transmission of the disease and we need to bring the R-number back below 1 if we are to effectively slow the spread of Covid-19 and suppress its transmission.

The public has been urged to avoid crowded settings.

"We are identifying outbreaks in a number of different settings such as private homes, workplaces and social settings," said Dr John Cuddihy, Director of the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.

"Congregated settings are ideal environments for this disease to spread between people. We all must avoid such congregations if we are going to break the chains of transmission of the virus."

It brings the total number of cases to 6,964.

One more death has been reported in the past 24 hours.

The total number of deaths in Northern Ireland now stands at 560.