Price of Christmas coronavirus relaxations emerging as almost 2,000 new infections and 13 deaths recorded in last 24 hours

A total of 1,985 individuals tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours - this takes the total number of positive cases over the last seven days and since the beginning of the pandemic to 12,144 and 83,236 respectively.

The DoH also reported 13 additional Covid-19 related deaths in the last 24 hours.

Nine of the deaths occurred in the last 24 hours and four deaths occurred outside of this period but were recorded for the first time in the 24 hours to 10.00am on Wednesday morning.

There are currently 592 individuals with Covid-19 in hospitals throughout Northern Ireland.

There are also 44 people in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds with Covid-19; 59 other individuals with non-Covid-19 conditions are occupying ICU beds and there are currently 18 unoccupied ICU beds available throughout Northern Ireland’s hospitals.

The Northern Ireland health service is currently operating at 102 per cent hospital bed capacity.