The HSE's Chief Clinical Officer has said just over half of people with Covid-19 in hospitals across the country are "actually in hospital because they are sick with Covid".
Speaking to RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Dr Colm Henry said that the remainder are testing positive for Covid-19 in hospital. According to the latest HSE figures, there were 905 people in hospitals around the country with Covid-19 at 8am, up one on the same time yesterday.
The Department of Health said that there were 37 deaths associated with Covid-19 in the week up to 6 July. Dr Henry said the Omicron variant has a "growth advantage over previous variants". "These new sub-variants have an additional growth advantage, so it is displacing previous variants and certainly may be more transmissible, may be able to evade immunity but not causing as much serious illness perhaps in the sense of intensive care units," he said.
About 41,000 PCR tests were carried out last week on people in the more "vulnerable cohort" such as older people and those with underlying health conditions, he said.