There have been 520 new cases of COVID-19 and one additional death in Ireland.
There has been a total of 4,588 deaths and 231,119 cases here.
Of the cases notified today:
- 258 are men / 262 are women
- 79% are under 45 years of age
- The median age is 28 years old
There have been 242 cases in Dublin, 36 in Meath, 30 in Offaly, 29 in Kildare and 25 in Wicklow.
The remaining 158 cases are spread across 20 other counties.
As of 8.00am, 359 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised - of which 81 are in ICU.
There have been 14 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
In terms of vaccine, as of March 19th, 668,529 doses have been administered in Ireland.
Some 487,466 people have received their first dose, while 181,063 people have got their second dose.
Meanwhile an international review on public health measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 - published by HIQA - has found that Israel has the largest share of its population fully vaccinated at 47.5%.
This was followed by Switzerland (4.3%) and Denmark (4.2%).
In Ireland, just 3.3% of the population were fully vaccinated by March 12th.
'Close contact transmission'
Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, said: "It is a very welcome development to see new visitation guidance for nursing homes coming into effect from today.
"As we begin to experience the benefits of vaccination, it is a reminder of what we are collectively working towards, a vaccination rollout that, along with our other protective measures, will end this pandemic.
"People have worked exceptionally hard over the past three months to reduce transmission in our communities. We have shown time and again that we can act collectively to protect one another. Please keep this going over the coming weeks."
While Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said: "For the week of the 7th-13th of March, 60% of disease incidence is taking place through close contact transmission and 24% in the community.
"59% of transmissions are occurring in households. Outside of the household, almost half of transmissions are occurring in social gatherings and the workplace."
And Dr Cillian de Gascun, director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, added: "The B117 variant, Ireland's most dominant variant of COVID-19, accounts for more than 90% of our cases and is extremely transmissible.
"Public health advice aims to limit the opportunities this virus has to spread, and it should be noted that B117 does not need much opportunity to do so.
"The most effective way to stop the spread of this variant and all variants of COVID-19 is to limit your social contacts and follow public health advice".
Options 'considerably narrow'
Earlier, Chief Clinical Officer with the Health Service Executive (HSE) Dr Colm Henry said Ireland having over 500 coronavirus cases a day 'considerably narrows' the options for easing restrictions.
He said the recent increase in daily figures was disheartening, but there was also cause for 'great hope' - saying the country is 'not back at square one'.
"It’s disheartening to see those figures go up again. We’re not really seeing the dip we hoped for.
"We were talking a month ago of getting down to 200 or so cases by the end of February… we find ourselves stuck at 500 or even higher cases per day."
And HSE CEO Paul Reid also voiced concern about the increase in COVID-19 hospital admissions over the weekend.
"A slight increase again this weekend which would give us concern just around trends, particularly in line with some of the cases we're seeing come through this weekend, a slight rise in cases would give us concern.
"We've a lot more to go through with our hospitals before we're back at any normal levels", Mr Reid said on Sunday.
