There have been 469 cases of Covid-19 reported by the Department of Health.
There are 103 people with confirmed cases of Covid-19 being treated in hospitals, an increase of two from yesterday.
38 of these patients are receiving treatment in intensive care units around the country, unchanged since yesterday.
The Department of Health, which is dealing with the fallout from a cyber attack last week, has said the numbers are subject to future data validation.
Meanwhile there are "some concerns" about the delivery schedule for the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) Covid-19 vaccine, HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid has said.
Ireland received a "minimal supply" of the J&J vaccine this month, he told a HSE briefing, adding that supply details are not available yet for June.
He said that 37 vaccination centres are now working at "real pace," with another to open at UCD in Dublin in the coming weeks.
Over 500,000 people registered on the vaccination portal have been given their dose in vaccination centres, he said.
The interval between AstraZeneca doses will be reduced from 16 weeks to 12 weeks, phased over the coming weeks.
AstraZeneca "is not a choice vaccine" as it will be used for second doses, he said.
Overall more than 2.2 million vaccines have been administered in this country up to yesterday, according to Mr Reid.
More than 1.6 million people have now received their first dose, 43% of the adult population, with Thursday of last week seeing the highest number of vaccines administered to date - 56,000.
There were 250,000 vaccines given out last week but that does not include data from GPs which could not be included because of the cyber-attack on the HSE, Mr Reid said.
This week they are on target to deliver between 260,000 and 280,000 vaccines, he added.
In the 60-69 age group, more than 320,000 people have received their first dose of vaccine, and 186,000 in the 50-59 age group have been given their first jab.
HSE's Paul Reid says that there are "some concerns" about the delivery schedule for the Jansen vaccines. Ireland has received a "minimal supply" of the Jansen vaccine in May, he said, supply details are not available yet for June | https://t.co/kXBPXfOUgt pic.twitter.com/AZgh7BwlNj
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) May 20, 2021
A proposal was submitted to the National Immunisation Advisory Committee three weeks ago and followed by guidance received from NIAC which would see a "significant change" to the implementation of the vaccine programme, Mr Reid said.
He added this potentially requires the use of a "choice-based model" which has not been the model used to date.
There has been a "collapse" in the harm caused by Covid-19 among vaccinated groups, according to the HSE's chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry.
The 14-day incidence is 124 per 100,000 of the population, which is "more or less the same" as it has been for a number of weeks, he said.
The difference now is "the variance between the number of cases per day and the harm being caused by those cases," according to Dr Henry.
"We've seen a collapse in harm among vaccinated groups, particularly among older people and particularly among those with underlying conditions and in nursing homes."
Deaths due to Covid-19 have fallen 95%, according to Dr Henry, from a peak of 102 in one day in February.
Meanwhile, the amount of outbreaks in nursing homes has plummeted from 47 per week in the early stages of the pandemic, to zero or one per week in recent weeks, and even those outbreaks have "very low numbers" of cases, he said.
The presence of cases of the so-called "Indian variant" of Covid-19 is "certainly of some concern," according to Dr Henry, but the measures taken in Ireland have slowed down its entry and its spread.
Early lab-based studies, and epidemiology, suggest it is more transmissible than the UK variant, Dr Henry said.
In the UK, almost 3,000 vases of this variant have been recorded, primarily among unvaccinated and young people.
More will be known about transmissibility in the next week, he said, and every effort is being made to address the unvaccinated sections of the population.
The Indian variant has been reported in 50 different countries around the world, including Ireland.
Reporting by Conor Kane, Conor Hunt
