Public health officials are concerned after a rise in the number of daily Covid-19 cases.
The five-day average has risen to more than 300 after 429 new infections were reported yesterday.
The estimated national 14-day incidence rate has climbed to 84 per 100,000 people.
Of yesterday's cases: there were 122 in Dublin, 46 in Donegal, 30 in Limerick, 22 in Laois, 20 in Cork and the remaining 189 cases were spread across all other counties.
There are currently 197 people in hospital with the virus and a further 31 people are in ICU.
Infectious disease specialist at the RCSI professor Sam McConkey says almost every county has seen an increase in cases in recent days: “Initially when I heard it, I said you can't base public policy on one number.
“Then I looked at the breakdown and shockingly the increase in cases is almost in 23 or 24 of the counties in Ireland.
“It is a very consistent increase everywhere and this is not just one big outbreak of 200 cases in a factory, this is an incremental rise all over the country.”
Pandemic approach
It comes as yesterday, Dr Ronan Glynn said the country was on the cusp of deploying two vaccines if they are authorised by the European Medicines Agency.
He said: “People should take great encouragement from these developments, and we can be confident that the successful implementation of this programme will mark a significant advance in our approach to this pandemic.
“However, there are still many uncertainties and barriers to be overcome.”
He said people needed to be willing to be vaccinated.
“Our research tells us that the majority have already decided that they will definitely (45 per cent) or probably (28 per cent) take the vaccine when it is offered to them,” he added.
