There have been 28 additional deaths related to COVID-19 and 763 new cases of the virus in Ireland.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) says 27 of these deaths were in February, with one in January.
The median age of those who died was 79 years, and the age range was from 32 to 97 years.
There has been a total of 4,109 COVID-19 related deaths and 213,400 cases here.
This includes the denotification of one death and 10 confirmed cases.
Of the cases notified on Friday:
- 370 are men / 388 are women
- 72% are under 45 years of age
- The median age is 30 years old
There are 251 cases in Dublin, 84 in Galway, 57 in Kildare, 47 in Limerick and 42 in Waterford.
The remaining 282 cases are spread across all other counties.
As of 8.00am, 754 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised - of which 151 are in ICU.
There have been 46 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
While, as of February 16th, 293,752 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to people.
This breaks down as 187,893 who have received their first dose and 105,859 have got their second.
Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, said: "The past year has been very difficult for people and we still have a way to go.
"Incidence remains very high and we cannot drop our guard.
"But better days are in sight. People continue to respond to public health advice and act in solidarity with one another.
"We have a dedicated and committed health workforce and we are learning more about this disease all the time.
"We now have three very safe and effective vaccines being rolled out and supply should increase very substantially over the coming weeks.
"Please continue in your efforts as we seek to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit from vaccination."
New Pfizer data
It comes as new data shows the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can now be kept in 'a regular freezer'.
Until now, the drug had to be stored at ultra-low temperatures of between -80°C and -60°C.
But the companies have asked the US health regulator to relax those requirements.
Professor Luke O'Neill earlier told The Hard Shoulder this is good news.
"The Pfizer vaccine is stable in your freezer, which is really good news for storage.
"-70 was the previous temperature, and that's very challenging for all kinds of reasons.
"But they've just submitted to the US administration, the FDA, it's stable at -20".
He said this is the same temperature as "a regular freezer that we all have in our houses".
