Coronavirus NI: No deaths recorded in NI with COVID-19 in last 24 hours - 1 person fighting for their lives with virus in ICU - but 850 new positive tests

The death toll still stands at 547 in Northern Ireland.

This can be divided into 286 men and 260 women.

Now there is only one person fighting for their lives with COVID-19 in ICU in Northern Ireland.

To date 102,164 people have been tested for coronavirus in NI - 5724 people have tested positive for the virus.

‘R’ number in NI remains 0.6 – 0.9 - this is key to decision making in Executive today

On Wednesday, the total number of positive tests for COVID-19 was 4,873, but from Thursday onwards the Department of Health’s daily dashboard also includes tests carried out through the regional test centres, mobile test units and home testing kits from 29 April.

That has taken the total of positive tests to 5,724 - an increase of 850 cases.

However most of those tests were carried out over the past few weeks and are only now appearing in the figures.

The dashboard says there have been 21 positive tests recorded in Northern Ireland in the last seven days using both health and social care labs and the national testing initiative.

Meanwhile there are now 44 confirmed COVID-19 patients in NI care Homes - and 18 suspected cases.