There are fears that there could be several local lockdowns in the coming months, according to a biology professor.
Paul Moynagh, from Maynooth University, says the measures in Kildare, Laois and Offaly might not be a once-off.
"Let's say the lockdown period locally lasts for two weeks and lets say we have another cluster one or two weeks after that.
"So are we going to have repeated lockdowns maybe in locations that have a number of meat factories or have high risk premises? So that is something that I would worry about."
This comes as today, 57 new cases of Covid-19 were announced in Ireland by the Department of Health.
Of the cases notified today, 29 of these cases are men and 28 are women. 70 per cent of the cases are under 45 years of age.
31 out of the 57 cases are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case and eight cases have been identified as being community transmission.
In terms of the location of new cases, the department confirmed that 19 cases are located in Kildare, 11 in Dublin, 10 in Offaly, seven in Limerick, and the rest of the cases are in Clare, Cork, Galway, Kerry and Wicklow.
Statement from the National Public Health Emergency Team
There have been no new #COVID19 deaths reported to the @hpscireland today.— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) August 10, 2020
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The acting chief medical officer Ronan Glynn gave more information this evening about the 879 cases that have arisen in the past two weeks:
"325 cases or 37 per cent were in Kildare, 163 or 19 per cent were in Dublin, 95 or 11 per cent were in Offaly, 71 or eight per cent were in Laois, 36 or four per cent were Limerick and 34 or four per cent were in Clare.
"The remaining 135 cases were spread across 20 other counties," he said.
Yesterday it was announced that there were 68 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed Ireland, according to the Department of Health.
No new deaths related to the disease were also reported, the death toll from the virus still remains at 1,772.
Of the new cases, 41 were confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case, while two cases were identified as community transmission.
Incidence rate
Meanwhile, Ireland has surpassed the UK's incidence rate of Covid-19 following a surge in cases over the past number of weeks.
The 14-day incidence rate of the virus in the Republic has increased to 16.9 cases per 100,000, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC).
Meanwhile, the UK's incidence rate currently sits at 16.5, with over 311,000 confirmed cases and 46,574 deaths recorded due to the virus.
