Of the cases notified today, 75 per cent are under 45 years of age. 48 per cent are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case, while 19 cases have been identified as community transmission.
56 of the cases are located in Dublin, 11 in Leitrim, six in Galway, and 29 cases are located in Carlow, Cavan, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Tipperary, Westmeath and Wexford.
Over the past week, two new clusters have been identified in residential care facilities. 24 new cases have been confirmed across residential care facilities, eight of which are in nursing homes.
There been six clusters identified in workplaces over the past week, none of which are in meat processing plants.
County warning
Acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn has issued a warning for the counties of Dublin and Limerick: “We are monitoring with growing concern the number of cases nationally, particularly in Limerick and Dublin. The next seven days are vital, everyone needs to reduce their contacts and assume any person you do meet may be carrying the virus.”
Dr Glynn said people would need to take all precautions and cut down social contacts. He said people needed to now assume that the virus was circulating in their community and a failure to take proper precautions against this would mean "we will be back into places that we don't want to be over the coming weeks".
Asked about a potential lockdown of the counties, Dr Glynn said: "The language of lockdown is really unhelpful. If we have to recommend additional measures, they will be measures to protect people."
"We still have control over this, we still have the power to change the trajectory of this."
The next 7 days is really important. In particular, people in Dublin and Limerick need to assume that #COVID19 is circulating.
1. Reduce your social contacts
2. Take a step back and keep your distance from others
3. Do not drop your guard just because you know someone— Dr Ronan Glynn (@ronan_glynn) September 7, 2020
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He said each individual around the country had to have a higher perspective of risk perception than there currently is at the moment.
Asked about the current low death rate in the Republic, Dr Glynn said comfort could be taken in the numbers as "each death is one too many", however, there was no comfort long-term as "we have no scientific basis to assume this disease has changed" and we have no vaccine or treatment. He said if cases continue to rise, a move away from cases predominantly confirmed among younger people should be expected.
Almost 360 new cases of Covid-19 were reported over the weekend in the highest weekend figure since early May, as there has also been a steady rise in hospital admissions.
The incidence rate of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 in Ireland is now higher than in 20 other countries across the continent of Europe, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
Just ten countries in Europe now have a higher incidence rate of the virus among their populations than the Republic.
It comes as 141 new cases of the virus were confirmed in the North today.
One further Covid-19 related death has also been notified in the region.
It brings to the number of deaths in Northern Ireland to 565 while the number of cases stands at 7,868.
