The Department of Health has been notified of four further deaths of people with Covid-19, bringing the total number of deaths here to 1,714.
There have also been an additional 16 confirmed cases of the virus. There is now 25,355 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Ireland.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said they have seen a small number of travel-related cases, adding that the advice in place remains that non-essential travel should still be avoided.
Dr Holohan said as of Tuesday 16 June, healthcare workers accounted for 32% of all cases.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan announces that healthcare workers account for 32% of reported cases so far | More: https://t.co/cQx3oWfQqQ pic.twitter.com/lmA0SeTa1v
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) June 18, 2020
The chair of the Epidemiological Modelling Group advising the National Public Health Emergency Team, Professor Philip Nolan said the number of people in clinical care continues to decline.
Professor Philip Nolan, chair of NPHET Epidemiological Modelling Group, says the number of people in hospital and intensive care continues to decline, while the number of new cases emerging is almost identical to last week | More: https://t.co/cQx3oWfQqQ pic.twitter.com/LOzl8nWZWW
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) June 18, 2020
Professor Nolan said none of the data "suggests that there is a significant increase of transmission of Covid-19 in the community since the commencement of Phase 2".
The number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 has also continued to decline.
Dr Holohan said NPHET met today and noted that approximately half of those diagnosed with Covid-19 in the community "take more than 2 days from the onset of symptoms to make contact with their GP".
"The most important actions anyone can take from the moment they experience symptoms associated with Covid-19 is to self-isolate immediately, restrict the movement of household contacts and make phone contact with their GP", Dr Holohan said.
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Dr Holohan said the question of hospital visits was also considered by NPHET today and that some planning work will be done shortly by the HSE to increase non-Covid activity across the health service and there will be progress to report on that matter over the course of the next week.
In relation to weddings he said advice has been given to the Minister for Health and it is being brought to government.
He said Ireland had been easing restrictions for over 4 weeks now and there has been a continuing downward trend in the disease, and that has given NPHET confidence on public health grounds in terms of the easing of restrictions.
Dr Holohan said as we move through the easing of restrictions we move away from 'rules' and more towards people's own individual behaviour.
On the reopening of schools, Dr Holohan said NPHET was working with the education sector to help them develop guidance for the resumption of educational activity.
He said he wasn't sounding a word of warning, but they had seen a number of countries around the world reimpose restrictions in school settings because of disease transmission, and he said this serves as a reminder that the risk of transmission is still there.
Dr Holohan said NPHET has not yet set out guidance for pubs to reopen as the current focus is on restaurants.
He said pubs are among the most risky in terms of transmission of the virus and that is why they had been held for the final phase of guidance.
Asked about hairdressing, Dr Holohan said consideration was given to all of the remaining measures at the NPHET meeting today as to whether they belonged in Phase 3 or Phase 4 and that advice has been given to government.
He said he expects the Government to make decisions based on that advice tomorrow.
It comes as the number of patients in hospital with confirmed coronavirus continues to reduce and now stands at 50.
The latest figures from the HSE brings to 249 the total number of patients in hospital with confirmed or suspected Covid-19, down from 276 in the previous 24 hours.
