LATEST: New cases of Covid-19 continuing to increase in Offaly
New cases of Covid-19 are continuing to increase in Offaly as the county continues to have by far the highest rate of the virus in Ireland.
Latest figures show that there were 30 new cases in the county today bringing the total for the last two weeks to 346 with 138 in the last four days alone.
The 14 Day Incidence Rate for the county now stands at 443.8 cases per 100,000 of population. Kildare now has the second highest rate but that stands at just 249. The rate for Ireland as a whole is down to 159.3.
As of midnight, Tuesday, March 23 , the HPSC has been notified of 683 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There has now been a total of 232,164 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.
Of the cases notified today 308 were in Dublin, 68 in Donegal, 49 in Kildare, 35 in Meath, 30 in Offaly and the remaining 193 cases are spread across 21 other counties.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 18 additional deaths related to COVID-19. Of the deaths reported today, 6 occurred in March, 7 in February and 5 in January. There has been a total of 4,628 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.
As of 8am today, 329 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 76 are in ICU. 18 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.