The Department of Health has said it will no longer publish daily Covid-19 figures, as the public was urged to follow public health advice over the bank holiday weekend.
The department, the HSE, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) and the National Virus Reference Laboratory will continue to monitor all information relating to the epidemiology of Covid-19.
Officials said this included all information relating to case numbers and local outbreaks, as well as the emergence and detection of new variants in Ireland and abroad.
Information on Covid-19 in Ireland will be regularly updated on the department's data hub site.
The news came as the department published its last set of daily Covid figures. There were another 980 positive cases of Covid-19 confirmed by PCR testing in the State, according to the figures. In addition, a further 1,020 people had registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal. As of 8am on Friday, there were 378 Covid-19 patients in the State’s hospitals, with 39 of them in ICU.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: “With the May bank holiday approaching, it is important that we all continue to follow the public health advice to socialise safely and maintain our focus on protecting those most vulnerable to the severe effects of Covid-19, as well as ourselves.”
Northern Ireland
Meanwhile, 24 deaths linked to Covid-19 have been recorded in Northern Ireland in the latest weekly update by a statistics agency.
The fatalities, reported for the week ending April 22nd, take the total number of coronavirus-linked deaths recorded by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) to 4,553.
The figure is drawn from different data sources and is always higher than the Northern Ireland Department of Health’s total as it provides a broader picture of the impact of Covid-19.
On April 22nd, the department had reported 3,407 deaths.
The department’s statistics focus primarily on hospital deaths and only include people who have tested positive for the virus.
Nisra obtains its data from death certificates on which Covid-19 is recorded as a factor by a medical professional, regardless of where the death took place or whether the patient tested positive.
The statistics agency reports its Covid data with a week’s lag.
The Nisra figure includes 3,165 deaths in hospital, 974 in care homes, and 414 at residential addresses, hospices or other locations.
Nisra reported that up to April 22nd, the deaths of 1,277 care home residents were linked to Covid-19, 28 per cent of all coronavirus-related deaths.
Some of the deaths registered in the week ending April 22nd could have taken place before that week as fatalities can take days to register. – PA