More than 600 people are hospitalised with Covid-19 tonight.

While 56 of those are receiving treatment in ICU, a further 3,394 new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed this evening.

Cork has the highest number in the country with 389 new cases. A further 355 are reported in Dublin, 339 in Donegal, 258 in Louth, 233 in Mayo and the remaining 1,820 cases are spread across all other counties.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said; “The incidence of COVID-19 is as high, if not higher now than it was in March. Every individual needs to act as if they are infectious. Hospitalisations are rising to levels close to what we saw in the springtime. Everyone needs to stay at home other than for essential work or care.

Dr Holohan said it is “really important that vulnerable and older people do not leave their homes unless absolutely essential.”

This includes asking neighbours or family to carry out errands such as grocery shopping, limiting all contacts to only those people you live with or have to visit for essential care reasons.

“We need to rediscover the spirit of solidarity and community we saw in March and April so that we can all do our part in protecting older and vulnerable people.” he said.

“People particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 include older persons and people with pre-existing medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease and cancer.”

On the worst day of the pandemic so far in terms of new cases, Health Service Executive chief Paul Reid is warning we have likely “not seen the worst impacts yet”.

We now have 581 #COVID19 patients in hospital. There are 50 people in ICU. We have likely not seen the worst impacts yet. But everything we do today to stop this virus spreading makes a huge difference. Please let’s all play our part to protect our health service.@HSELive

— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) January 2, 2021

Doctors working through Christmas backlog

Yesterday the Chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, Professor Phillip Nolan said that a very large volume of positive tests in recent days has created a delay in formal reporting.

“In excess of 9,000 additional new cases will be reported over the coming days. The reporting delay does not affect case management or contact tracing or our overall monitoring and modelling of the pandemic,” he explained.

Professor Nolan said he expected the daily number of confirmed Covid-19 cases to continue in the thousands for at least another week until the backlog is resolved.