There have been 611 confirmed case of coronavirus announced this evening alongside five further deaths.
It takes the death toll to 1,816 and the total number of cases to 39,584.
Some 218 of the new cases were in Dublin with 63 in cork, 60 in Donegal, 35 in Galway and 31 in Kildare.
The remaining 204 cases are located across 21 other counties.
The Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said 83 of the new cases have been identified as community transmission while 50% are outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case.
He said all key indicators of the disease have deteriorated further in the three days since NPHET dropped its bombshell call for the entire country to move to Level Five on Sunday.
“COVID-19 is spreading in our community in a very worrying manner. We have to break these chains of transmission,” he said.
“80 COVID-19 cases were hospitalised in August, 206 in September and 77 so far in October.
“In August, four COVID-19 related deaths in total were reported, 34 in September and today, on the 7th of October, we report 8 COVID-19 related deaths this month.”
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