Number of Covid-19 patients in ICU falls to lowest total since January 3

Overall, ICU numbers have decreased by 70% from a high of 221 on January 24. File Picture

The number of patients with Covid-19 in intensive care has fallen to 66 - the lowest total recorded since January 3.

Overall, ICU numbers have decreased by 70% from a high of 221 on January 24.

At present, there are 304 patients with Covid-19 in Irish public hospitals - the lowest number seen since December 26.

For context, there were over 2,000 people hospitalised with Covid-19 at one point in mid-January.

HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid has welcome news of the decreases.

Writing on Twitter, Mr Reid said he was “Thankful” the numbers were going down, but acknowledged this was happening at a speed “slower than we would like.” 

“We all want this trend to continue down and avoid the tide turning against us again,” he said.

Thankfully the numbers of #COVID19 patients in hospital (304) and ICU (66) continue to come down, albeit slower than we would all like. Dublin hospitals remain highest. We all want this trend to continue down and avoid the tide turning against us again. @HSELive

— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) March 27, 2021

Meanwhile, 584 new cases of Covid-19 were reported by health officials last night.

The majority of the cases (222) were located in Dublin.

There were 44 new cases in Kildare, 33 in Offaly, 31 in Meath and 29 in Westmeath.

A further twenty Covid-19 related deaths were also confirmed. 

Eleven of the deaths occurred this month, three were from last month and six others occurred in January.

The youngest person to lose their life was 57 and the oldest was 91.

A total of 233,327 cases of the virus have been confirmed in Ireland since the pandemic began, and 4,651 deaths have been recorded.  

Five-day average increases

The average number of new cases of Covid-19 has increased by nearly 11 percent over the past 10 days.

The five-day average now stands at 552. At the beginning of last week, it was 499. 

Speaking yesterday, Monaghan GP Illona Duffy says the number of cases now being reported each day is "concerning."

"We're really not seeing any reduction in the figures and there seems to be no shock or no real concern amongst the general public," said Dr Duffy.

It's almost like we've become numb to these figures and we're not seeing anything wrong with the fact that they're not dropping.

"The reality of it is that while we continue to have figures like this indicating that we really have a lot of community transmission of this virus," she said. 

"The risk is there that we are going to see those numbers rise and rise again.

Vaccines 

According to the latest vaccination data, 709,348 doses of Covid-19 vaccination have been administered as of March 23. 

515,800 people have received their first dose, while 193,548 have received their second dose and are fully vaccinated.