Meath's Covid-19 cases remain stubbornly high

The number of Covid cases in County Meath remains stubbornly high with 31 new cases in Meath today and 424 cases in the past 14 days.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 20 additional deaths related to COVID-19 as well as 584 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

As of 8am today, 317 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 67 are in ICU. There have been 25 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

As of last Tuesday (23 March), there have been 709,348 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered in Ireland:

515,800 people have received their first dose andn193,548 people have received their second dose.

Navan continues to have a very high incidence rate of the virus with 138 in the fortnight up to last Monday and an incidence rate of 395.1 per 100,000 compared to the national average of 158.3.

Ashbourne also had a very rate of 312.9, while the remaining electoral areas in the county had the following rates... Kells- 172.9, Trim-121.8, Ratoath-108 and Laytown/Bettytown -199.3.

Of the deaths reported today, 11 occurred in March, three in February and six in January.

The median age of those who died was 73 years. The age range was 57-91 years.

There has been a total of 4,651 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland and there has now been a total of 233,327 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today:

297 are men and 286 are women

72% are under 45 years of age

The median age is 34 years old

222 are in Dublin, 44 in Kildare, 33 in Offaly, 31 in Meath, 29 in Westmeath and the remaining 225 cases are spread across 19 other counties.