Six more Covid-19 deaths confirmed in Northern Ireland

Six more people have died after testing positive for Covid-19 in Northern Ireland.

It brings the death toll, reported by the department of health to 3,062.

The latest update from the department also showed a further 3,568 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours.

Case numbers have increased in the past seven days. There have been 27,760 in the past week when there was over 23,300 in the previous seven days.

Deaths are continuing to decline. There were 26 in the past seven days.

It comes as it was revealed health officials believe Northern Ireland may be at, or close to, the current wave of the pandemic. However, it is thought the true extent of the virus may not be fully know after the change in requiring a PCR test was temporarily dropped.

Hospital occupancy has risen to 105%, and eight hospitals are currently over capacity.

As of Friday morning, there are 398 patients in hospital with the virus with 24 people in intensive care.

There are now 213 care homes with confirmed Covid-19 outbreaks.

Meanwhile, the department says a total of 3,641,579 vaccines have now been administered in Northern Ireland.