'An awful lot in the community' - People showing early symptoms of Covid-19 urged to stay at home

Dr Nuala O'Connor from the Irish College of General Practitioners has urged people to stay at home and isolate if they have any symptoms of Covid-19.

Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, Dr O'Connor said there is "an awful lot of Covid in the community now, and we're seeing a big impact on that in our day-to-day work in general practice", adding that by the time people are contacting their GPs they are already after being at work or social events and are quite symptomatic by then.

As of 8am this morning, there were 885 people in hospital with the virus, an increase of 59 on the same time yesterday, with 32 of those in intensive care.

Dr O'Connor said the increase in cases is due to social events such as weddings and it's the early symptoms that you have when you're most infectious, urging people to think about the more vulnerable in our society and to stay at home, adding children who have symptoms should not be sent to summer camps or birthday parties.

The increase in numbers are having a huge impact on hospitals with a large number of beds being taken up by Covid patients, with a "significant amount" of those in hospital have not been vaccinated, added Dr O'Connor.