500,000 will have been vaccinated by Saturday

A large majority of 85s and overs will have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by Sunday, the Health Minister, Stephen Donnelly has predicted.

“We have received 520,000 vaccine doses, by the end of the week, the forecast is that we will have administered 500,000,” he said.

Meanwhile the numbers being treated for Covid-19 in Our Lady's Hospital in Navan has fallen as cases across the country continue to fall.

There were nine people being treated for Covid -19 in Our Lady's Hospital last night with none in critical care beds. The same evening last week, there had been 17 cases of the virus in Navan, two of them in the Critical Care Unit.

Sadly another 14 people with COVID-19 have died, the National Public Health Emergency Team has confirmed this evening. Three of those deaths occurred in March, 10 in February and one in November

There have now been 4,333 deaths of people with COVID-19 in Ireland

Another 359 additional cases of COVID-19 were also confirmed this evening, 19 of them in Meath.

There have now been 220,630 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland

As of 8am today (Tuesday), 498 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 116 are in ICU. There have been 28 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Of the cases notified today:

· 157 are men / 193 are female

· 66 per cent are under 45 years of age

· The median age is 34 years old

· 159 in Dublin, 25 in Westmeath, 21 in Louth, 21 in Galway, 19 in Meath and the remaining 114 cases are spread across 19 other counties.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Ronan Glynn said; "While the low number of cases reported today may be attributable to a weekend effect, it is nevertheless very welcome and represents the lowest number of cases reported on a single day since mid-December.”