There are 43 patients with Covid-19 being treated in intensive care units in hospitals around Ireland today, down two from yesterday.
The total number of people in hospital with the virus today stands at 981, as of 8am. This is a drop of 37 on yesterday's figure.
The latest figures come as the Covid Special Envoy for the World Health Organization said that the pandemic is not over despite many people thinking that we can just get on with life now.
"It's not finished," Dr David Nabarro said on RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme. "There are ways we can live [with it], but they do require us just paying attention to what we know about the virus as it is now. "
He said that about every two or three months there are surges, often associated with a shift in the actual makeup of the virus and the new strains "will be able to dodge past some of the protection that we get from vaccines, and so that means that, some of us at least, will get several Covids’ perhaps even in a year."
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Dr Nabarro urged people to get vaccines and keep them up to date. He also said that people should avoid getting the virus by physical distancing and wearing masks in crowded areas.
He said he thinks we should have a "mature approach to Covid, which is where we do wear masks, but not because we're instructed to by authorities, but because we know it's the right thing to do for ourselves and for others".
He said it will not be possible for the world to keep adapting vaccines to match every variant that comes along.
"I think that the most important thing that we need to do is to keep the basic vaccination coverage that we've got up as fully as possible, because I believe that that's the best way we've got of preventing people getting severe illness and death," he said.
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