Covid-19 Update: Wed. 17th Feb. 2021 – 57 Deaths – 650 New Cases

Only YOU and you alone can stop the current chain of virus transmission.

The Department of Health have confirmed that there have, sadly, been 57 further deaths caused by the Covid-19 pandemic; leaving the overall death toll, here in the Republic of Ireland, remaining at 4,036.

There have been 650 new additional virus cases reported within the republic today. This leaves the current total number of confirmed cases, since conception, here in the Irish Republic, at 211,751.

Relative to midnight last night, (February 16th), 24 further cases of Covid-19 were confirmed over the previous 24 hours, here in Co. Tipperary, with 243 cases identified within the same area; within the past 14 days.

Of the cases today; 192 are in Dublin, 53 were in Galway, 50 in Meath, 46 in Kildare, 46 in Cork, with the remaining 263 cases located across 19 other counties.

There are 650 people with Covid-19 in hospital, and of that number, 154 are in ICU’s, according to Ireland’s COVID-19 Data Hub.

In Northern Ireland, sadly, 6 further people have died from Covid-19, with 297 new confirmed cases today.

Some 180,192 first doses of Covid-19 vaccines were administered by the Health Service Executive (HSE) up to last Saturday, with 91,750 having received their second dose. The breakdown of vaccines that have been administered todate shows:- Pfizer-BioNTech – 254,365; AstraZeneca – 14,185 and Moderna – 3,392.

Because of the current Covid-19 pandemic, the Irish Cabinet Education Sub-Committee has wisely cancelled the Junior Certificate Examinations for this year.
Subject to the agreement of Unions, Leaving Cert students will get the option of ‘calculated grades’ or a ‘written exams’, latter which will incorporate all subjects studied.

Meanwhile, the European Commission has said it has struck a deal for an extra 150 million doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine this year, nearly doubling the number of shots secured from the US biotech firm for 2021.

The total world wide number of cases identified up to 5:30pm this evening, are now standing at over 109.6 million confirmed cases, with global deaths well over 2.42 million.