Offaly no longer worst-hit county for COVID-19 as vaccine targets missed again

Offaly is no longer the worst-affected county for new COVID-19 cases.

Tonight's figures show that Longford has now the most cases per population over the last fortnight.

Offaly had been recording the country's highest 14-day rate for COVID-19 cases for almost a fortnight until it was passed tonight by Longford.

Figures tonight show there were eleven new cases in Offaly up to midnight on Thursday. Over the fortnight ending at midnight on Thursday, there had been 299 new cases in Offaly - a rate of 383.5 per 100,000 cases.

Longford now has a 14-day rate of 393.9 per 100,000.

Meanwhile, for the second week in a row, the country has missed its target for vaccinations.

18,157 fewer vaccine doses than the 100,000 the government had committed to were delivered in the last week.

The shortfall was due to the deferral of a delivery of 25,000 AstraZeneca vaccines last week and this week.

The Taoiseach Micheal Martin acknowledged it would be "very challenging" to meet vaccination targets for the month of March, but he was confident of significant, additional vaccine supplies in the second quarter.

He said he was confident that vaccination targets outlined for the end of June could be met, but he emphasised this was subject to supply.

Meanwhile, a further nine people confirmed to have Covid-19 have died and 522 new cases of the virus have been confirmed in Ireland, the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) said this evening.

Four of the nine deaths deaths occurred in March, three in February and one in January.

The death toll from Covid-19 in Ireland is now 4,405, and the total number of confirmed cases is 222,169.

Of the cases notified today:

275 are men / 243 are women

67% are under 45 years of age

The median age is 33 years old

280 are in Dublin, 28 in Meath, 28 in Kildare, 26 in Cork and 19 in Donegal and the remaining 141 cases are spread across 19 other counties.