There was a bit of confusion regarding the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Ireland on Friday evening.
At its daily media briefing, The National Public Health Emergency Team reported 480 new confirmed cases on Good Friday and revealed that the national total had risen to 7,054.
However, after being pressed by media members for clarification, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan announced that the total here is, in fact, 8,089.
Dr Holohan explained how some coronavirus tests have been sent to German labs for analysis due to a backlog in Ireland and the results from those tests have increased the total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland by 1,035.
Dr Holohan insisted that he had no intention of being misleading or ambiguous with the figures that are being reported daily.
He said: “We’re not trying to obscure them. Some of these tests go right back to the middle of March. If we reported them it would give a false sense of how the disease is increasing day on day.”
Dr Holohan continued: “We did not want to report historic cases and new cases at the same time.”
At the time of writing, the total number of deaths related to coronavirus in Ireland is 288.
