A further 93 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in the Republic, bringing the total number of deaths here to 2,708.

Three of these deaths occurred in December, one is still under investigation and the other 89 occurred this month.

The median age of those who died was 82 years and the age range was 41-99.

A further 2,001 cases of the virus were also confirmed, bringing the total number of cases here to 176,839. Of these, 701 occurred in Dublin, 204 in Cork, 102 in Waterford, 98 in Meath and 90 in Donegal.

As of 2pm on Tuesday, there were 1,949 people in hospital with confirmed COVID, 202 of whom were in ICU. There had been 100 additional hospitalisations in the previous 24 hours.

"While we are starting to see the early results of our collective efforts to minimise the transmission of the virus, we are very sadly reporting an additional 93 deaths today. We cannot afford to drop our guard against the very high levels of infection that remain in the community at present," commented the Department of Health's chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan.

He said that the number of hospitalised COVID patients "are of critical concern", as these represent "a very significant pressure on our healthcare workers and on the provision of acute medical and surgical non-COVID care".

"We need everyone to stay at home, other than for essential reasons. The more that each individual follows this advice in their everyday lives, the more we can drive down the spread of COVID-19 and minimise the impact on vital healthcare services, patients and frontline workers," Dr Holohan added.

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