ANOTHER two people have died after contracting Covid-19, the Department of Health has revealed.
The latest deaths take the overall confirmed number of people to have died to 2,178.
Thursday's data also shows that another 1,471 people have tested positive, bringing the confirmed infection total to 154,167.
Despite the daily infection figure remaining high, the number of people in the north's hospitals being treated for Covid has fallen.
Thursday saw a total of 234 Covid inpatients - a drop of 10 from the previous day.
Of these, 31 were being treated in intensive care units, which was one less than Wednesday.
In the Republic, the number of Covid inpatients on Thursday was 160, with 26 receiving intensive care treatment.
Meanwhile, the number of vaccination doses administered in the north has increased by 6,770.
The number of people who have now received both doses stands at 1,030,507, while the total number of vaccine doses to be administered is 2,239,652.
Work was continuing yesterday on repairing the COVIDCert NI app that provides proof of vaccination for people travelling abroad.
The app has faced technical issues since being launched last Friday, and has been off-line in recent days.
On Thursday a Department of Health spokesperson said the service will be returned in a phased and managed way and will be strictly limited to specific dates of travel, at any particular time, while it ensures that the service is working as expected.
"The Northern Ireland COVID Certification Service will be available from 9am on 30 July for those travelling on 1 August in the first instance. Some applications will be processed manually and applicants will be contacted via email on what to do as they progress," they added.