The Health Service Executive has said there are 140 confirmed Covid-19 cases in hospital as of this morning.
This is down 85% from a peak of 879 on 13 April, according to HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid.
"Many hospitals across our system now have no confirmed cases," he added.
The week ahead is a very important one with the further reduction of restrictions, he said, but added that Ireland is still a society living with Covid.
There are 37 patients in intensive care units this morning, and 81% of beds filled in ICUs at present are not Covid-related.
Mr Reid said the overall positivity rate for Covid-19 tests remains at 1.7%.
The HSE chief executive said there has already been a return to non-Covid services, with increased activity in emergency departments and increased use of public beds in hospitals.
People who need care have been urged to come forward.
However, Mr Reid also encouraged people to continue to see consultations through their GPs and community settings, saying they do not want to see hospitals put under pressure with non-urgent cases.
HSE CEO Paul Reid has said there are 140 confirmed Covid-19 cases in hospital as of this morning. He said this is down 85% from a peak of 879 on 13 April | Read more: https://t.co/RMlS53L2uU pic.twitter.com/XUYMSCzid5
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) June 5, 2020
Contact tracing at meat plants is as high as 90%, the HSE said. It was responding to comments made by Minister for Health Simon Harris last night when he claimed that contact tracing in meat plants was running between 60 and 70%.
On testing and tracing, Mr Reid said 350,000 tests have been completed around the country and there have been improvements in turnaround time.
From 19 May, he said, all close contacts of suspected cases are being tested whether they are experiencing symptoms or not.
It is important that people come forward for testing if they have been contacted, he stressed. He said 87% of 24 people who were confirmed positive through contact tracing last week were asymptomatic.
Mr Reid also said the technology element of the contact and tracing app has been completed.
The technology development of the HSE contact tracing app has been completed. The data will be held on a person's own phone, not on a central health system. Field trials will start with Gardaí using dummy data. A memo on the app will go to Govt soon for approval.
— Fergal Bowers (@FergalBowers) June 5, 2020
HSE Chief Operations Officer Anne O'Connor said as of yesterday the HSE is providing support to four residential care sites that need a very significant level of support.
There are still 335 HSE staff deployed to long-term residential care units.
In the past week, she said, the HSE delivered 9.3m PPE products, supplying to 34% of residential care and 26% to home care settings.
HSE Chief Clinical Officer Dr Colm Henry said although it is impossible to link any one public health measure with what has happened overall, we have seen in a collapse in community transmission of the virus.
He said he had no doubt that the measures that were brought in and people's compliance with them led to the collapse in community transmission of Covid-19 and if they had not been brought in we would have come perilously close to uncontrolled community transmission and faced the fate of other countries.
He said the message was stay home, but now it’s going to be 'stay local'.
He said some new cases are still unexplained in terms of links with other cases.
The virus is out there, he said, albeit at a low level but there is still a danger of transmission.
If someone who is positive goes into a crowded bar in Dublin before symptoms occur they will transmit the virus at a very high level.
He said the R value in crowded environments is much higher.
