Official figures show an increase in outbreaks of Covid-19 in nursing homes, with long-term residential care facilities also facing a significant risk regarding their operations, mainly in terms of staffing demands.
Of the 425 residential care facilities in the country, 75 have a status red designation.
Latest official figures show an increase in outbreaks of Covid-19 in nursing homes with 211 such clusters reported.
A further 144 outbreaks have been seen in other residential facilities.
The Health Information and Quality Authority is now inspecting nursing homes that have not reported any outbreaks.
It means these facilities are facing a significant risk regarding their operations, mainly in terms of staffing demands.
Meanwhile, the rate of growth of new cases of the virus in Ireland has remained low over the last week.
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The total number of deaths linked to Covid-19 currently stands at 1,102.
The Department of Health confirmed an additional 386 coronavirus cases this evening, bringing the overall number to 19,648.
Data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre as of midnight on Friday shows that 2,625 cases so far have been hospitalised.
Around 80% of cases of Covid-19 will be a mild to moderate illness, close to 14% have severe disease and around 6% are critical.
Generally, you need to be 15 minutes or more in the vicinity of an infected person and within 2 metres of them, to be considered at-risk, or a close contact.
Deaths in mental health facilities
The Mental Health Commission has said it has been notified of 12 Covid-19 related deaths at mental health facilities.
There have been 94 suspected, or confirmed cases, relating to residents.
There have also been 201 suspected, or confirmed cases, relating to staff.
The commission said it is continuing to do everything in its power to uphold the safety, rights and well-being of residents and patients of 179 mental health facilities, across the country.
In a statement, the commission also said it "intends to closely monitor testing of mental health staff by service providers, having noted significant inconsistencies in the application of new guidance in relation to testing in some long-term residential facilities".
"As part of its risk-rating of in-patient mental health services, along with 24-hour community residences, the Commission noted that just two out of the nine Community Healthcare Organisations (CHOs) have completed, or mostly completed, testing on mental health staff."
Elsewhere, there have been ten deaths of people with intellectual disabilities in residential settings.
The figure was revealed to representatives of people with intellectual disabilities by the Minister for Health.
Inclusion Ireland met Simon Harris amid concern about outbreaks of Covid-19 in long-term residential care homes.
Inclusion Ireland said it was concerned about a lack of reporting of the number of people with disabilities within institutions who have died from Covid-19.
The organisation had been seeking a breakdown on the number of people who had died from Covid-19 in the disability sector for some time.
Mr Harris told the meeting that 90% of disability centres are virus-free.
The remaining 10% have various levels of outbreak.
It is expected that the Health Surveillance Protection Centre will provide more detailed data later this week.
