Ireland in "stable but precarious" position - Nolan

Ireland is in a stable but precarious position with Covid-19 infection rates and it has not changed much in the last 10 days, according to

Professor Philip Nolan chair of the Covid-19 Modelling Advisory Group.

He said that on average, 533 new cases were reported over the past seven days and the figure has been between 500 and 600 for the entirety of March.

Prof Nolan said the situation "doesn't seem to be getting worse but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be getting better."

"This is translating into a significant number of people per day becoming so unwell that they require hospital care."

Meanwhile, the Department of Health has been notified of six further deaths related to Covid-19 and 411 new cases, 20 of them in Meath.

There are a total of 297 patients with the virus in hospital, 67 of whom are in intensive care.

There were 16 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

The death toll from Covid-19 in Ireland is 4,687, and the total number of confirmed cases is now at 235,854.

As of Sunday, 806,541 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland:

580,857 people have received their first dose and 225,684 people have received their second dose.

Of the 411 new cases confirmed today 202 are men and 209 are women, 70% are under 45 and the median age is 35.

Dublin has 150 of the cases, there are 31 in Donegal, 25 in Kildare, 25 in Wexford, 21 in Offaly and the remaining 159 cases are spread across 17 other counties.