Claire Byrne shocked her viewers with a bleak outlook on the Covid-19 situation in Ireland on Monday night.
On an evening where the Chief Medical Officer urged the public to cancel Christmas plans after nearly 6,000 new cases, Claire Byrne Live took a deeper look at what's going on.
Claire spoke to Dr Sinead McArdle, a doctor at the Mater Hospital, about how the situation is affecting hospitals.
Dr McArdle revealed the strain that the health service and particularly ICUs are currently under - with nearly 700 people in hospital as of 7am on Monday morning.
Dr McArdle noted that it's looking like the situation will continue to worsen, and it could get to the point where if there's two people very ill but only one bed, it could come to having to choose which person will get the bed - a scenario no one wants.
Professor Luke O'Neill also featured to give his latest advice on the situation when it came to the potential rollout of a nationwide booster programme.
One viewer tweeted: "Great to see such clear concise and honest messaging regarding the trajectory of COVID-19 on #CBLIVE"
A second added: "They need to stop faffing around and give us the bloody boosters. Imbeciles"
While a third said: "It's disheartening and disingenuous to see the constant carping and criticism of doctors here. I for one owe them my life"
Meanwhile, research for the show by Amárach revealed that six in 10 people have reduced their social contacts over the last week.
- Asked whether they had “reduced their social contacts over the last week” 60% said Yes, while 38% said No and 2% said they didn’t know.
The poll suggested that people are not expecting the need for caution to disappear very soon.
- 44% of respondents said that they had cancelled plans for the pre-Christmas period within the last week. 56% said that they had not.
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