Thirty-nine more deaths related to COVID-19 have been confirmed, as well as 462 new cases of the virus.

This brings the total number of deaths in the Republic to 4,396 and the total number of cases to 221,649.

Of the 462 new cases, 207 occurred in Dublin, 29 in Cork, 26 in Meath, 20 in Kildare and 18 in Galway.

As of 8am on Thursday, there were 460 patients with confirmed COVID-19 in hospital, 107 of whom were in ICU. There had been an additional 26 hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

As of March 1, a total of 446,474 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered - 303,550 first doses and 142,924 second doses.

According to the Department of Health's deputy chief medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn, the department has been made aware of four preliminary reports of stillbirths that are potentially associated with a condition called COVID placentitis, which is "effectively an infection of the placenta".

"These reports should be interpreted with caution as the coroners have not yet concluded their findings. The HSE's National Women and Infants Programme is aware of and is monitoring the situation and has issued a related notice to obstetric departments. I would ask that the privacy of all of those affected by this disease continue to be respected at all times," he commented.

Meanwhile, according to Prof Philip Nolan, chair of NPHET's Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, the R number "has at least remained stable and may even have decreased slightly".

"This is reflected in the week-on-week decline in cases that has been reported recently. This represents an extraordinary effort over a very challenging nine-week period. that has brought us from 6,500 cases to under 600," he said.

More information on the latest figures in relation to COVID-19, including the number of people vaccinated so far, is available here.