Dr Ronan Glynn has explained a big factor in Cork edging closer to level three lockdown.
He revealed that 70 cases of the disease in The Rebel County have been associated with pubs and restaurants.
NPHET is alarmed at the pace at which cases in the county have been rising.
The numbers have been on the rise for about three weeks and have gone up by 103% in the past seven days.
Cork has registered 66 cases of coronavirus per 100,000 per population over the last fortnight.
That is actually below the national average, which is 84 cases per 100,000.
The growth is in the city and urban areas has been particularly striking, while the countryside has a low incidence rate of the disease
Four counties are causing particular worry at the moment - Cork, Galway, Monaghan, and Roscommon.
The story in Galway is quite similar to Cork where the countryside has a relatively low incidence rate.
The 14-day disease incidence total for Galway is 62 cases but it has been growing for the past few weeks and has risen by 94% in the past week alone.
Significant clusters of Covid-19 associated with young people and house parties have driven the rise in Galway, according to Dr Glynn.
Dr Glynn, said: “It’s a high number any day of the week.
“We’re still continuing to see a higher number than we would like across the country in a number of counties continuing to rise.”
Dr Glynn stressed there was still a particularly high infection rate in Donegal and Dublin, but the rate of spread in the capital “was possibly beginning to stabilise”.
There were 209 cases in Dublin, 27 in Cork, 22 in Donegal, 21 in Galway and 14 in Kildare and Monaghan.
The counties that were next on the list in terms of the spread of the disease included Roscommon, Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford, all with just seven.
There were six new cases in both Limerick and Longford, while Laois, Meath, Offaly and Sligo had five respectively.
Dr Glynn said: “Kildare and Louth are stable but they are high so It wouldn’t take much for them to go in the wrong direction again.
“And unfortunately we’re seeing particularly fast increasing incidents in a number of counties.
“And I suppose I want to increase Cork and Galway, which we’ve been doing for about a week, but also Monaghan and Roscommon.”
Dr Glynn said they were both small counties in terms of population but “they do stand out for the speed in which the situation is deteriorating”.
There are fears that further counties will be brought into level three if they can’t get the virus under control in the coming days.
Dr Glynn added: “With the way this is moving it’s possible that NHPET recommendations could be made about any county.”
