There have been 13 further coronavirus-related deaths and 738 new cases of the disease confirmed to the Department of Health.
Ten of these deaths occurred in February, one occurred in January, one occurred in October and the date of death remains under investigation in one other case.
The median age of those who died was 81 years and the age range was 55 - 92 years.
There have been 4,313 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland, while the cumulative total number of infections is 218,980.
The number of people in ICU with Covid-19 is 135, one less than yesterday. There are 550 patients with the disease in hospital with 27 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Of the cases notified today 356 are men and 378 are women with 71% under 45 years of age.
There were 311 cases reported in Dublin, 54 in Limerick, 36 in Cork, 34 in Offaly, 33 in Donegal and the remaining 270 cases are spread across 20 other counties.
As of Wednesday, 24 February, 391,355 doses of Covid vaccines have been administered in Ireland. 254,948 people have received their first dose and 136,407 people have received their second dose.
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The 14-day incidence rate of coronavirus per 100,000 population is 215.8. This compares to 250.2 a week ago and 674.2 one month ago.
Counties with the highest infection rates include Offaly (406.6), Longford (305.8) and Dublin (290.9). Counties with the lowest rates include Kerry (46), Cork (68.9) and Kilkenny (89.7).
Earlier, the chair of the Covid-19 Vaccination Taskforce said that close to half a million vaccine doses should be administered by the end of next week.
Prof Brian MacCraith said the infrastructure will be in place to provide one million vaccines a month by quarter two and two million a month, or 500,000 each week, in quarter three.
Speaking to RTÉ's Saturday with Katie Hannon, Prof MacCraith said that based on supplies continuing, a dedicated vaccine workforce of over 2,000 people, on top of GPs and pharmacists, will be employed to roll out the vaccines.
He said that there will be the potential at 37 mass vaccination centres in quarter three to administer 300,000 vaccines a week and an additional 200,000 vaccinations each week at small centres in each county.
Almost 400,000 doses had been administered up to last Wednesday, 150,000 in long-term care facilities, over 200,000 to frontline healthcare workers, and almost 30,000 to over 85s.
Meanwhile, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has praised what he called "more strong evidence" for how well vaccines on working.
"Mass testing of one Dublin hospital this week returned just four positive cases from 3,150 tests. That's a positivity rate of just 0.13%," he said on Twitter.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that the positivity rate had falled below 4% for the first time since mid-December.
"Progress might have slowed but it definitely has not stalled," he said on Twitter, responding to new data showing there were 692 positive swabs from 18,008 tests, a 3.84% positivity rate.
Professor Philip Nolan said the five-day average test positivity from public health laboratories has fallen from 8% to 6% in one week.
Good news. We were worried about test positivity, which seemed to have plateaued, but the 5-day average test positivity from public health laboratories has fallen from 8% to 6% in one week; and the positivity across all labs has been under 5% for 5 days (4.2% today) pic.twitter.com/Wq1v6dVA8b
— Professor Philip Nolan (@President_MU) February 27, 2021
The chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team's Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group added: "This is in part due to increased testing in certain settings with known low positivity, but there is also a general downward trend; really pleased to see this further sign of progress and suppression."
Earlier, HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid said while healthcare teams are exhausted, the fact they are getting vaccinated and signs that this is helping reduce transmission is giving everyone a "second wind".
Continued improvement today in those hospitalised (550) & in ICU (135) with #COVID19. Our healthcare teams are exhausted. But getting their vaccination & the great signs of it reducing transmission is giving us all a second wind. We are winning, it's just not over yet. @HSELive
— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) February 27, 2021
The roll-out of vaccines by GPs to people aged 85 years and older continueD at centres set up at Munster Technology University in Cork City and Merlin Park in Galway, ahead of the delivery of 44,000 vaccines to another 500 GP practices nationwide from Monday.
All people arriving into Ireland from South America will now also have to undergo mandatory quarantine after 13 states were added to the list of high-risk countries by the Minister for Health last night.
The Department of Health in Northern Ireland has reported two further deaths due to Covid-19 and 184 people have tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours.
Elsewhere, experts at the US Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously last night to authorise Johnson and Johnson's single shot Covid-19 vaccine for use in the United States.
The European Medicines Agency is expected to follow suit in 12 days' time.
