The 14-day incidence rate of Covid-19 has reached its highest level since early February.
Deputy chief medical officer, Ronan Glynn, says it has risen to 386 per 100,000 people, after over 18,000 cases in the past two weeks.
188 Covid patients were in public hospitals last night, with 30 in intensive care units.
Dr Eoghan de Barra, an infectious diseases consultant in Beaumont Hospital, says the hospital figure hasn't increased too much recently.
"Happily it's very low as a percentage of the case numbers and that's the impact of vaccination and the age profile is younger.
"More than 80 percent of those admitted to hospital with Covid are unvaccinated.
"So this is largely a disease now in terms of hospitalisation of the unvaccinated."
Today and this weekend, @HSELive are operating additional walk-in #COVID19 vaccination centres right across the country. #VaccinesWork #ForUsAll 1/5https://t.co/drlFOjVMsQ
— Dr Tony Holohan (@CMOIreland) August 6, 2021
The chief medical officer is strongly encouraging people to attend walk-in Covid vaccination centres this weekend.
Over 40 are operating across the country today and tomorrow, and all except one are for first doses only.
At least 30,000 people went to the clinics last weekend, when they opened for the first time.
The HSE's national lead for the vaccination programme, Damian McCallion, expects a big turnout again this weekend.
"We had a really high turnout last weekend, we would expect it to be slightly lower given that we have also had a lot of appointments this week for does one.
"Most of our clinics are operating a mixed schedule over the weekend, in other words they'll have these walk-in clinics they will also have regular appointments for dose one, and they'll also have appointments for dose two.
"You look at HSE.ie to see the times that those clinics are operating. They're not operating at all times so it's really important to check the time sbecuase the centres will not be able to accommodate people outside that."
