The Department of Health has reported that 55 more people with Covid-19 have died, and there have been 827 new cases of the virus.
297 of the cases are in Dublin, 76 in Cork, 56 in Galway, 46 in Wexford, 37 in Kildare and the remaining 315 cases are spread throughout the country.
Today's cases include 409 men and 416 women, with 63% under 45 years of age. The median age is 38 years old.
As of 2pm today, 1,177 coronavirus patients were in hospital, with 177 in ICU.
There has been 29 further hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said: "There are a few old habits that collectively we have to break in order to suppress COVID-19 together. We know that people who feel unwell typically avoid calling their GP over the weekend, and wait to see if they improve. You should no longer do that – you must phone your GP at the first sign of anything like COVID-19 symptoms. Do not adopt a 'wait and see' approach."
"Similarly, do not leave your house or go to work if you have any cold or flu like symptoms at all. Breaking these habits will limit COVID-19’s opportunity to spread from person to person."
In Northern Ireland, seven people with Covid-19 have died, five occurring during the past 24 hours. It takes the official death toll there to 1,922.
There were also 390 new confirmed cases from tests on 2,020 people.
There are 602 confirmed coronavirus patients in hospital - a drop of more than 100 since this time last week. There are 67 Covid-19 patients in ICU, 59 of whom are on ventilators.
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Earlier, head of the Health Service Executive Paul Reid said the lower numbers in hospital "is providing much relief for our hospitals, patients & families. It is still far too high for safety but a good sign that all of our actions are working".
A continued good trend down in #COVID19 hospitalised patients at 1196 & 177 in ICU. This is providing much relief for our hospitals, patients & families. It is still far too high for safety but a good sign that all of our actions are working. @HSELive
— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) February 6, 2021
Meanwhile, Dr Tony Holohan has said he hopes that in time evidence will show that the vaccines against Covid-19 will also help to prevent people who have the infection from passing it on to others.
Dr Holohan said that following the authorisation of the AstraZeneca vaccine he asked the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) to provide advice on the use of this vaccine in older adults and to consider the appropriate time interval between the first and second doses.
He said that based on their advice, he recommended to the Minister for Health that we provide only the mRNA vaccines - Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna - to people over the age of 70.
"This is because trials of both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines showed higher efficacy overall including among older adults. Data on efficacy among older adults with AstraZeneca vaccine is lacking at this time."
He said that people over the age of 70 are the next group of people in the prioritisation schedule agreed by Government.
"They are the most vulnerable to the disease, and they have had to shoulder the greatest burden of ill health, hospitalisation and mortality during this pandemic.
"It is also important that we recognise that they have been isolating themselves for extensive periods of time during the last year.
"It is a matter of great importance that we as a country can now offer the vaccines we believe to be most effective to the people who are most vulnerable to the effects of Covid-19 i.e. those aged over 70.
Dr Holohan said that "we are in a strong position. Thanks to the efforts of the population in staying home, limiting contacts and following public health advice there has been a substantial decrease in disease incidence and we can see that we are suppressing this third wave of Covid-19 infection faster than any other country in Europe.
"It is very important that we keep this up. With a daily case number in excess of 1,000 we know we need to make more progress with the measures that Government has mandated until 5th March.
"It is especially important that those who have been vaccinated keep following the same advice as everyone else because we don't yet have enough good evidence that vaccination can stop them spreading the infection.
"Please continue to stay safe and follow public health advice and we will get through this pandemic together", he said.
