Anyone exposed to Covid-19 over the Easter weekend will now be at their most infectious and if they have symptoms they should isolate and contact their doctor, the acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn has warned.
His appeal came as a further 34 Covid-19 related deaths were reported on Friday by the National Public Health Emergency Team.
An additional 473 new confirmed cases of the virus were also reported.
Hospital Report
The latest deaths bring to 4,769 the number deaths in the pandemic in the Republic.
There have been 240,192 cases of the virus confirmed since its onset.
The latest deaths included three this month, four in March, 19 in February, five in January, and three in either December or before.
The median age of those who died was 81 years with an overall age range of 33 to 96.
As of 8am on Friday, 212 people were being treated in hospital for the virus of which 53 were in intensive care. There were 17 additional hospitalisations over the preceding 24 hour period.
The slight majority of new cases were in women (247, or 52 per cent) while 76 per cent are under 45 years of age. The median age is 29.
Of the new cases 229 were in Dublin, 32 in Kildare, 21 in Mayo, 19 in Meath, 30 in Donegal and the remaining 142 cases are spread across 19 other counties.
Nphet said that as of April 6th, 961,887 doses of vaccine have been administered broken down into 679,844 first doses and 282,043 second doses.
“Anyone exposed to Covid-19 over the Easter weekend will now be at their most infectious – please isolate and contact your GP to arrange a test if you have any symptoms of Covid-19,” said Dr Glynn.
Offaly continues to have the highest 14 day incidence of the disease at 323.2 cases per 100,000 population. The national 14-day incidence stands at 144.9.
New test centres
Earlier, it was reported that four new Covid-19 walk-in test centres will open on Saturday following the success of other such centres opened over the past fortnight.
Two will be in Dublin with one each in Waterford and Limerick
The new centres will be in Cumann Naomh Peregrine, Blakestown Road, Mulhuddart, Dublin 15; at Ballyfermot Sports Complex, 33-39 Gurteen Road, Redcowfarm, Dublin 10; St Joseph's Health Campus, 3 Mulgrave Street, Limerick and at WIT College Street Campus, Cork Road, Waterford.
The Limerick centre will open for six days while the other three will remain open for seven days. They will be open from 11am to 7pm daily.
A walk in testing centre already in operation at Coláiste Eoin, Cappagh Road, Finglas, Dublin, will remain open until 7pm on Sunday.
The HSE is also providing free walk-in testing for third level students at University College Cork on Friday.
The centres are aimed at those aged over 16 years without Covid-19 symptoms and it is hoped they will pick up cases of the virus including any new variants which are circulating in the community.
The HSE continues to open asymptomatic walk-in centres in areas where the number of positive cases are particularly high. “Increasing the number of people we test will help us better understand how and why the virus is spreading quicker in certain areas,” it said in a statement on Friday.
To date Covid-19 walk-in test centres have tested 25,413 people at 14 centres nationwide.
Finglas and Blanchardstown had the highest test positivity rate of more than 4 per cent with the average positivity rate being 2.6 per cent.
To date, 635 Covid-19 cases have been identified through the centres.
They were intended for those who were asymptomatic, but half of those who tested positive did have symptoms and 40 per cent have been subsequently identified as close contacts of confirmed cases.
