There have been 772 new coronavirus cases announced this evening alongside six further deaths.

It takes the death toll in Ireland to 1,908 and the national total number of cases to 61,059.

There have been 287.1 confirmed cases of the virus per 100,000 people in Ireland over the past two weeks.

Some 228 of the new cases are in Dublin, with 120 in Cork and 50 in Meath.

Every county in Ireland recorded cases in the past 24 hours.

The Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said that, while the overall situation has improved, “these are still very early days.”

"The overall situation has improved, but we have to remember that these are very early days," he said. "This improvement will only be maintained if we keep going in our efforts.

"We have to remember that incidence is increasing in older age groups, who are particularly vulnerable to this disease. The way in which we can protect them is if we continue to drive down transmission across the whole population."

This afternoon, there were 325 COVID-19 patients in hospital, with 42 in intensive care.

Cavan currently has the highest 14-day virus rate at 669.5 per 100,000 people.

Meath is second-hardest hit 546.5, with Westmeath in third at 546.5 and Sligo in fourth at 363.2.

Dublin’s 14-day rate now stands at 251.6 while Leitrim has dropped down to 121.7.

The Chair of the NPHET modelling group Professor Philip Nolan said the reproduction number of the virus is now close to 1.0 nationally.

“This is the first time in a number of weeks that we have been able to report positive indicators of the disease,” he said. “However, our experience to date shows this type of progress is very fragile.

“We should take these positive signs as an indication our efforts are starting to work. The critical thing now is to keep it up; the virus will seek out any opportunity to spread. Over the next weeks let’s make sure we don’t give it that opportunity, by driving R and case numbers as low as possible.”

Of the 99,657 tests carried out in the past seven days, 5.3% came back positive.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Desmond Hickey said: “As of today, Ireland has seen a reduction in its seven-day incidence rate of 36% when compared to the previous seven days.

“Ireland’s progress is notable when compared to the rapidly deteriorating picture across Europe,” he said.

“It is paramount that we sustain and continue to drive down disease incidence as much as possible in the coming weeks.”