Two more people with Covid-19 have died in Northern Ireland, taking the official department of health toll to 2,077.
Both deaths occurred outside the current 24-hour reporting period.
There are 144 new cases from tests on 1,050 individuals.
The number of confirmed Covid-19 patients in hospital is now 220, down from 334 a week ago. Of that number, 35 are in ICU, 25 of whom are on ventilators.
According to the latest figures 631,654 vaccines have been administered, of which 588,803 were first doses and 42,851 were second doses.
The average 7-day infection rate per 100,000 for Northern Ireland is 65.0.
The area with the highest rate remains Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon on 76.8, while the lowest remains Fermanagh and Omagh on 33.4.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland's education minister has expressed hope that plans to return children to classes in the region can be accelerated.
Peter Weir visited a primary school in Belfast today as thousands of P1-P3 pupils from across Northern Ireland returned to classes for the first time since December. Pre-school and nursery children also returned.
Under Stormont's phased plan for schools, the next pupils to resume face-to-face learning are secondary school pupils in key exam years, year groups 12-14, on 22 March.
The P1-P3, nursery and pre-school children are supposed to resume remote learning on that week to minimise the impact on community infection rates of the secondary school return.
The Easter holidays begin the week after that, but no date has yet been confirmed for the return of the wider school population.
Mr Weir said he would be proposing to executive colleagues that the plan to bring young children back out of classes on 22 March be cancelled.
He also expressed hope that all primary school pupils would be able to get back into a classroom before the Easter holidays.
On the visit to Springfield Primary School in west Belfast he said: "It would be great for instance if we could get all our primary school children back before Easter, that will ultimately be in the hands of the executive.
"I think we need to see continuity of learning. Obviously, the steps that we've taken so far are the steps that we can only be taking at this point with regard to health.
"But I think we're in a fast-moving situation so I'll be bringing proposals forward which will say actually, particularly for P1 to P3, they should carry on throughout and I think we don't want to see any more disruption to our young people's education."
He said health officials would need to consider this proposal and his suggestion that other primary school year groups - P4-P7 - also return to classes this month.
The minister added: "While there's been lots of great work that's being done by remote learning by schools, lots of great work, tireless work being done by parents, you know there's no substitute for children being directly in school themselves on a face-to-face basis."
Mr Weir also said he would be working with health officials to develop testing procedures in secondary schools.
Additional reporting by PA
