Coronavirus Ireland: Three deaths and 457 more Covid-19 cases confirmed

This brings the total number of cases in the country to 238,148 and the total number of coronavirus-related fatalities to 4,718.

This comes as Ireland will reach the milestone of one million vaccine doses administered some time next week, the head of the HSE has predicted.

Paul Reid said more than 900,000 doses will have been completed by the end of the weekend.

Mr Reid said: "Good Friday, we had one of our highest days so far for the vaccine administration.

"We'll have well over 900,000 completed by this weekend.

"During next week, we'll have administered over one million doses. April & May will see the programme scale up further again."

Four new Covid-19 testing sites opened on Friday across the country for people who don’t have symptoms.

This brings the number of current pop-up temporary testing hubs to seven. The centres hope to find people with asymptomatic infections in order to help curb the transmission of the coronavirus.

The four new hubs are at Naas racecourse, Co Kildare, Crumlin GAA Clubhouse, Co Dublin, Athlone Regional Sports Centre, Co Westmeath and the Town Hall and Library car park in Ballinasloe, Co Galway.

The three other centres opened on Wednesday in Finglas and Balbriggan, Co Dublin, and in Navan, Co Meath.

The pop-up hubs will operate for seven days in the Dublin locations and for five in all the others, except for the centre in Ballinasloe that will only be running for three days.

The tests are free for anyone over the age of 16 and anyone living within 5km of a centre is being encouraged to attend.