LATEST: ‘Very serious’ – just under 6,000 new cases of virus confirmed

A further 5,959 people have contracted Covid-19, the Department of Health confirmed this evening.

There are now 640 patients in hospital with the virus, a drop of three from yesterday.

Of these, 121 people are being treated in intensive care, an increase of three.

The latest cases were confirmed as the Chair of NPHET’s Expert Advisory Group and Director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory warned the country cannot continue on this trajectory over the coming weeks.

Dr Cillian de Gascun told RTÉ’s Saturday with Justin McCarthy the situation is “very serious”.

“We know that the public health measures that people have been practising over the last two years will be effective against this virus,” Dr de Gascun said.

“The problem is that we have to do them better and do them for a longer period of time to get the same benefit with Delta as we would have had with the original virus back in 2020, and even with Alpha around the start of the new year.”