One in 86 people in the Republic had coronavirus during the last two weeks, new figures show.
The national 14-day incidence rate for Covid-19 now stands at 1,162.2 cases per 100,000 people, according to the Department of Health.
That equates to just over 1 per cent of the population, or one in 86 people, testing positive for the disease between December 26th and January 8th.
This comes as nine more coronavirus-related deaths were recorded, along with an additional 4,842 new cases.
Monaghan has the highest incidence rate in the country at 2,296 cases per 100,000, followed by Louth at 2,008 and Limerick at 1,660.
Of the new cases confirmed on Saturday, 1,049 were in Dublin, 530 in Cork, 514 in Waterford, 405 in Wexford, 247 in Louth and the remaining 2,097 cases spread across all other counties.
61 per cent of the cases were in people under 45 years of age.
The median age was 38 years old.
It comes as a record 1,293 people with Covid-19 were in hospital in Ireland on Saturday afternoon, including 121 in intensive care units.
The figure is now four times higher than a fortnight ago when 321 people were in hospital with the disease on December 27th.
There were 102 additional hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.
Hospital staff are bracing themselves for a surge in coronavirus patients as the number of cases escalate.
HSE chief executive Paul Reid said the priority must be protecting more people from getting sick as the numbers of people being taken to hospital with the virus will continue to rise.
There's now 1,285 people being treated in hospital (+ 134 on yesterday) with #COVID19 & 107 in ICU. For now, it will rise more. Saving lives & protecting more people getting sick is our priority. But, in time, the huge sacrifices everyone is making will work. Thank you. @HSELive
— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) January 9, 2021
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He tweeted: “There’s now 1,285 people being treated in hospital (+ 134 on yesterday) with Covid19 & 107 in ICU.
“For now, it will rise more. Saving lives & protecting more people getting sick is our priority. But, in time, the huge sacrifices everyone is making will work. Thank you.”
Ireland’s coronavirus reproduction number is now between 2.4 and 3, the highest level seen throughout the pandemic.
Friday saw three cases of the South African variant of Covid-19 discovered in Ireland.
There are fears that the mutated form of coronavirus could be resistant to vaccines, although public health chiefs here say there is not enough information to determine that.
“The UK variant is of more concern to us purely because of the amount of virus that's on the island, and we know that it's transmitting in the community,” Dr Cillian De Gascun, the head of Ireland's national virus laboratory, told RTÉ.
“The good thing about the South African variant is we know exactly where those cases came from, they have been contained, controlled and contact traced, and to the best of my knowledge there was no onward transmission,” he said. – Additional reporting: Press Association
