The Department of Health has confirmed 93 Covid-related deaths and 2,001 new cases of the disease.
There have now been 2,708 deaths from coronavirus and a total of 176,839 cases.
Of the deaths reported today, three occurred in December, 89 occurred in January and the date of one death is still under investigation.
It was the highest daily death toll recorded here since the outbreak of the pandemic last year.
The median age of those who died was 82 years and the age range was 41-99.
The number of people being treated in intensive care is now at 202, which is up two on yesterday.
Of today's cases, 892 are men and 1,098 are women, with 55% of the cases in people under 45 years of age.
The national breakdown of the cases is: 701 in Dublin, 204 in Cork, 102 in Waterford, 98 in Meath, 90 in Donegal and the remaining 806 cases are spread across all other counties.
As of 2pm today, 1,949 people were in hospital with Covid-19. There has been 100 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said: "While we are starting to see the early results of our collective efforts to minimise the transmission of the virus, we are very sadly reporting an additional 93 deaths today.
"We cannot afford to drop our guard against the very high levels of infection that remain in the community at present.
"Covid-19 ICU and hospitalisation numbers are of critical concern to us, representing a very significant pressure on our healthcare workers and on the provision of acute medical and surgical non-Covid care. We need everyone to stay at home, other than for essential reasons.
"The more that each individual follows this advice in their everyday lives, the more we can drive down the spread of Covid-19 and minimise the impact on vital healthcare services, patients and frontline workers."
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Meanwhile, the Government is expected to complete a review of the current Covid-19 restrictions at next Tuesday's Cabinet meeting.
The current restrictions run until 31 January, but look certain to be extended.
The country moved to full Level 5 restrictions on 30 December 2020 following an increase in cases of coronavirus.
Today's meeting of Government heard again from the Minister for Education Norma Foley that public health advice makes it clear that schools are safe.
It comes as new figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre show the number of Covid-19 outbreaks increased last week.
Overall outbreaks increased to 293 compared to 220 the previous week. The main increases were seen in residential institutions and hospitals.
The number of outbreaks in workplaces also rose to 41 compared with 25 the previous week. Private house outbreaks reduced for the second week in a row.
The data is for the week to 16 January.
It was compiled at a time when the HSE has temporarily suspended tracing of close contacts, due to the recent surge in overall Covid-19 cases.
The Chief Executive of the HSE, Paul Reid, has said that healthcare staff are "under unrelenting strain in hospitals and communities".
Our teams are under unrelenting strain in hospitals & communities. Almost 2,000 patients in hospital, 400 receiving higher levels of care (200 ICU). If anyone dismisses this virus to you, take no heed. It's nonsense & insulting to patients, families & frontline staff. @HSELive
— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) January 19, 2021
The Chief Clinical Officer of the HSE has said that in the coming days we are going to see a hospital system that has never been so stretched or possibly in a more precarious position.
Dr Colm Henry told RTÉ's Six One News that there has more than an average of 3,000 cases per day over the last five days.
He said that many of these people will become sick, many will require intensive care and some of them will die.
Dr Henry said there are high levels of disease and infection in the community and that is feeding through to hospitals.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet signed off on a deal to pay €60 for each patient vaccinated by members of the Irish Medical Organisation and the Irish Pharmacy Union.
The agreement will see the Government allocate €91m for the vaccines to be administered to approximately 1.5 million people.
Additional reporting Fergal Bowers
