606,904 doses of vaccine administered

Despite having to pause the administration of the AstraZeneca products,Taoiseach Micheál Martin said today he hopes Ireland will be able to "catch-up fairly quickly" on its rollout of Covid-19 vaccine,

He said it was a precautionary measure but the Government hoped it was a "temporary" move.

New figures from the HSE show that up to last Friday, 606,904 people had received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine - of these, 443,092 were first doses and 163,812 were second doses.

Meanwhile the Department of Health has reported no further Covid-related deaths and 575 new cases, 48 of which were in Meath.

As of 8am today, 360 Covid-19 patients were in hospital, of which 85 are in ICU.

There were 25 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

The total number of confirmed cases is now at 227,316. The number of Covid-19 related deaths remains at 4,534.

Of the cases notified today:

289 are men / 282 are women

73% are under 45 years of age

The median age is 30 years old

232 were in Dublin, 48 in Meath, 41 in Tipperary, 38 in Kildare, 30 in Galway and the remaining 186 cases are spread across 20 other counties.