Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said there has been a "significant" increase in the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 over the last week.
Speaking on his way into a Cabinet meeting this morning, he said that while only 40% of those are in hospital because of Covid-19, there are knock-on effects as a result of prevention control.
As of 8am, there were 474 people in hospital with the virus, up from 464 on the same time yesterday and 409 last Tuesday. Of these, 13 people are in intensive care units with Covid-19.
Mr Donnelly also said there has been a huge uptake in Covid vaccines and that last week 80,000 people availed of a vaccine. He said he is bringing a memo to Cabinet this morning with advice from Chief Medical Officer Professor Breda Smyth and a Covid plan for the winter. "We hope things will remain calm with Covid, but we can’t plan on that basis," he said. Latest coronavirus stories Also speaking as he arrived at Government Buildings, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar said there was a briefing by the CMO last night who said that Covid-19 cases are rising again, but said "we would expect to be able to manage without any new restrictions".