A further 1,049 COVID cases have been announced this evening.

This morning, there were 310 coronavirus patients in Irish hospitals – up 13 on this day last week.

There were 66 in intensive care, three more than last week.

The five-day moving average has fallen to 1272.

The COVID-19 five-day moving average

It comes after the HSE said there had been a significant drop in people presenting for covid testing since new rules for under 12s were announced.

Officials said appointments dropped by an average of 20% over the weekend.

From today, children under 12 do not have to restrict their movements if they’re an asymptomatic close contact of someone with COVID in school.

Meanwhile, the HSE chief Paul Reid told Newstalk Breakfast that Ireland is moving away from measuring COVID-19 infections.

He said the country would begin to move away from measuring infections to considering “how we monitor sickness in our communities - as happens with many other infectious diseases.

"From a health perspective, it is looking to assess symptomatic people and identify symptomatic people.

"We will continue to test for outbreaks and continue to do general surveillance.