26,000 register for vaccination within hours of online portal opening

Around 26,000 people registered for a Covid-19 vaccination within hours of the online portal for 69-year-olds going live this morning.

Booking opens for people aged 68 from tomorrow, 67-year-olds from Saturday, 66-year-olds from Sunday and 65-year-olds from next Monday.

People need their PPS number, Eircode, mobile phone number and an email address to register online.

A further eight deaths of people with Covid-19 were reported this evening along with 309 additional cases of the virus, five of them in Meath.

Of the deaths reported today, four occurred in April, two in February and two “in January or earlier”.

The median age of those who died was 79 years, while the age range was 43 to 92.

There have been 4,820 deaths of people with COVID-19 in Ireland and 242,402 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

As of 8am today (Thursday), 184 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 51 are in ICU. There have been 22 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

As of last Tuesday (13th April) there have been 1,094,964 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered in Ireland: 769,721 people have received their first dose and 325,243 people have received their second dose.

Of the cases notified today:

168 are men, 141 are women

71% are under 45 years of age

The median age is 35