The Minister for Health has said the highest number of people with Covid-19 "in quite some time" are being treated in hospitals.
Yesterday, there were 808 people in hospital with Covid-19, the highest figure since 25 January. Of these, there were 47 with the virus in intensive care units.
This is creating a "very heavy burden" on hospitals as entire wards have to be used exclusively for treating Covid patients, he said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, Minister Donnelly said he said he is not concerned about the trends in terms of the population. "The ongoing advice I have from public health is that while the numbers are high, the total amount of severe illness in the country is still low. "The public health advice I have, is they are not flagging concerns, but it is still a very serious pressure for us in running the health care system." A total of 19,852 new Covid-19 cases were reported between Saturday and yesterday, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.