Irish health officials have this afternoon confirmed a total of 9,365 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre reported that 3,780 of those cases were PCR-confirmed and 5,585 were people who registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal.
As of 8am today, 646 Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, of whom 72 are in ICU - and three are children.
According to reports, the three children were admitted to intensive care units over the weekend being treated for severe side effects of the virus.
The HSE is continuing to urge parents and guardians to bring their five to 11-year-olds for their vaccine as concerns grow amid the high levels of infection among young people in Ireland.
Meanwhile, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has said the number of people waiting on trolleys in hospitals across the country is at the highest peak since the beginning of the pandemic.
The union has called for "urgent action" from the Government with 603 people now on trolleys in Ireland’s hospitals.
The hospital with the highest number of patients awaiting a bed is the University Hospital in Limerick, where 71 people are in line for treatments while on a trolley.
In Cork University Hospital there are 58, University Hospital Galway has 46, while Letterkenny University Hospital and St. Luke’s Kilkenny currently have 44 people on trolleys.
INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha, is now calling on the government to put a plan in motion to help.
She said: "The number of patients without a bed in our hospitals today is simply unacceptable and should not be tolerated. The fact that we have over six hundred patients on trolleys while Covid is still a very real feature in our hospitals is inexcusable.
"Since the first week of January in particular, the INMO has been calling for urgent action to ensure that trolley numbers do not rise to unsustainable levels, yet here we are barely the second week of February with a dangerous amount of patients on trolleys.
"This issue is not just confined to one part of the country, we are seeing huge amounts of patients waiting on trolleys nationwide.”
In the statement Phil Ní Sheaghdha said the union is calling for the Emergency Department Taskforce to be convened and for emergency measures to be deployed in the areas worst.
She went on to say that “if non-emergency services need to be curtailed in order to allow the HSE and hospital groups to get a handle on out of control trolley figures then that must be done.”
