10,414 Covid-19 cases confirmed, with 49 further deaths reported over the past week

4,809 of the new cases were positive antigen tests registered on the HSE portal on Tuesday. File Picture: Mufid Manjun

Forty-nine new Covid-related deaths have been notified to the Department of Health over the past week. 

The new figures bring the country's overall death toll since the pandemic began to 6,136. 

A further 10,414 new cases of Covid-19 have also been confirmed this evening.

5,605 of the new cases were reported via PCR testing, while the other 4,809 cases were positive antigen tests registered on the HSE portal on Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, the number of Covid-19 patients in hospital has dropped by almost 18% over the last week.

As of 8am this morning, there were 739 Covid patients hospitalised - a drop of 85 since yesterday.

Two weeks ago, 997 Covid patients were being treated in hospital, down from an earlier peak of 1,063 on January 10.

Also this morning, there were 74 Covid patients in intensive care, five fewer than yesterday and the lowest overall daily total recorded since November.

Infectious diseases consultant in Beaumont Hospital, Eoghan de Barra, says the majority of patients in hospitals with the coronavirus are not very sick.

"Even these numbers over-represent the severity of it because the majority of those patients happily are fully vaccinated and are not particularly sick with Covid itself," he said. 

"So I think there's going to be a long tail to hospitalised numbers but the key thing again will be just how sick they are with Covid."

The infectious disease society carried out a survey of almost half of all patients in hospital with Covid-19 and found that around 70% of them didn't require additional oxygen at the time.

"The vast majority of patients were not particularly ill and that continues to be the case, but there are still some becoming severely ill and some patients ending up in intensive care unit," Dr de Barra added.

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