The Chief Medical Officer has said the current 14-day incidence of Covid-19 remains more than double the rate experienced at the peak of the previous Level 5 restrictions in October.
Dr Tony Holohan said that the risk of virus transmission in the community remains very high and he urged people not to drop their guard and start to interact with people outside their household.
By 8pm yesterday, the number of Covid-19 patients in hospital had eased again to 1,598, down 20% from the peak ten days ago.
But the pressure on intensive care continues unabated with 211 Covid-19 patients in ICU, 136 of them on ventilators.
In addition, there were no spare critical care beds available in 14 acute hospitals, half of the country’s total.
Yesterday was the fifth consecutive day the number of new coronavirus cases was below 2,000, bringing Ireland nearer to resuming testing close contacts of confirmed cases.
The Health Service Executive announced that Covid-19 antigen tests, carried out in the public health system, can now be used to confirm infections.
This should allow a significant increase in testing with shorter turnaround times and lower cost than total reliance on PCR testing, which has been the case until now.
Another 54 Covid-related deaths and 1,335 new cases of the virus were confirmed by the Department of Health yesterday.
There have now been a total of 3,120 coronavirus-related deaths and 191,182 confirmed cases in Ireland.
Meanwhile, 12 countries have lost visa-free access to Ireland, after Minister for Justice Helen McEntee signed a regulation last night due to Covid-19 concerns.
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Travellers from South Africa and Brazil, as well as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay, are affected.
The regulation came into effect at midnight in response to rising concerns about more contagious Covid-19 variants.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that he expects to add to the list of countries where a mandatory quarantine of 14 days will apply for any arriving passengers into Irish ports and airports.
He told a Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting last night that half of the arrivals into Dublin Airport on Tuesday night came from holiday destinations – 397 out of 800 passengers.
He said the Government is responding in multiple ways from increasing fines for non-essential journeys to more garda checkpoints at ports and airports.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar told a Fine Gael party meeting last night that he would not rule out any strategy to deal with the pandemic, saying it was possible the European Union could even decide to ban travel into the EU.
Opposition TDs argue that the Government is acting to slowly.
Independent Thomas Pringle said that while people have pandemic fatigue, they also feel that 2020 was wasted because the Government did not learn any lessons.
Testing centres open for French-bound drivers
Two antigen testing centres – one at Dublin Airport and another in Gorey, Co Wexford – are opening today to facilitate commercial drivers travelling to France.
The Government is urging hauliers to pre-book the tests before they travel.
The advice has been issued because of a new French requirement, which comes into force today, for people arriving into the country to have proof of receiving a negative Covid-19 test.
The tests are free of charge for drivers with results expected within an hour. More testing facilities are due to open in the coming days.
However, the president of the Irish Road Haulage Association has criticised the lack of test centres.
Eugene Drennan said the pre-booking system was “nonsense” and a third facility should already be in place.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Drennan said the two test centres were not enough and the location of the centre in Gorey is likely to lead to tailbacks and delays.
Additional reporting Paul Cunningham