New data has revealed details of the Omicron COVID-19 cases in Ireland to date.
Health officials believe more than half of COVID cases here are due to the variant.
HPSC figures reveal that full genome sequencing analysis has confirmed 193 cases of Omicron by the end of last week, with the earliest case dating back to November 25th.
A further 37 COVID cases have been identified as “highly probable” cases of Omicron due to close contact with a confirmed case.
Image: HPSCThe most cases of Omicron to date - 58 case, or 30% of the total - have been detected in the 25-34 age group.
Significant numbers were also reported in the 19-24 age group (22.8% of all cases) and 35-44 age group (19.7%).
The HPSC data also reveals that fewer than five of the confirmed Omicron cases to date have led to hospitalisation, with no ICU admissions or deaths reported to date.
Experts have raised concerns that Omicron is "spreading like wildfire" in Ireland.
While hospital numbers have been declining over the past two weeks, there are concerns a new surge due to Omicron could put further pressure on hospitals over the Christmas and New Year period.
The booster vaccine campaign has been ramped up in a bid to offer people more protection against Omicron, with more than 100,000 doses administered yesterday alone.
Meanwhile, new figures also show that the seven-day positivity rate of COVID tests has gone above 16% for the first time since January.
The figures capture the percentage of tests over the past week which returned a positive result.
More than one in five tests analysed yesterday came back as positive.
