Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Tony Holohan has said that though we have "made significant progress", the level of infection is still "way too high".
Saying that he doesn't have "any reason to disagree" with comments made by the Taoiseach in regards to Level 5 being extended, Holohan stated we have "a very significant burden of infection" - later adding that he envisions restrictions being in place for "a substantially longer period of time".
Speaking at a public health press conference last night, Holohan commented that though progress has been made, there is still a long way to go yet.
"We have further progress that we need to make. As Professor Nolan has said, we have made significant progress as demonstrated by the reproductive number and other measures that we are tracking, but we know we have to keep that up.
"We have to maintain that for a substantially longer period of time to enable us to get the levels of transmission down."
The CMO's comments come after Taoiseach Micheál Martin yesterday said that he "
can't make predictions" in terms of what's going to happen down the line. Commenting that everything is dependent on the rate of infection, Martin refused to rule out the possibility that businesses could be forced to remain closed until May or June this year.
A further 51 deaths and 2,608 new cases were reported in the country yesterday.
