A five-day quarantine for all arrivals into Ireland would be more realistic and ensure more compliance, says health expert Kingston Mills.
Speaking with Brendan O'Connor on RTÉ, the Professor of Experimental Immunology at Trinity College says quarantine is imperative as there are concerns that more variants of the virus will emerge in the future.
He said the variants first detected in South Africa, Brazil and California are causing concerns as some have a mutation in the virus spike protein that make it harder for vaccines to neutralise.
There is a lot of talk about when we will get back to normal amid vaccine roll-outs in Ireland, but Prof Mills believes a five-day quarantine for international travellers from all countries will be necessary.
He also said a ban on anyone entering without a negative PCR test and a mandatory follow-up test five days later would detect 99% of Covid-19 cases and be easier to implement.
Ireland's re-opening could happen sooner if the variants of Covid-19 did not exist.
However, Prof Mills says that people must work to reduce community transmission and that going forward the virus could be controlled with an annual booster vaccine in the meantime.
Prof Mills said that Denmark is leading the way on IT to support its vaccination programme.
They've created a digital system integrated with an app on people's phone to register and record vaccinations.
As of Wednesday, 24 February, 391,355 doses of Covid vaccines have been administered in Ireland.
254,948 people have received their first dose and 136,407 people have received their second dose.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney also appeared on the show, saying quarantine measures apply to all travellers into Ireland who are required to quarantine for 14 days.
He said that travellers from non-Category 2 countries are allowed to leave quarantine if they get a second negative PCR test five days after arrival.
"We are now moving to implement that from 32 countries, because there are an extra 12 countries to be added based on NPHET recommendations, that anyone coming from those countries that they will have to spend 14 days in a state-provided mandatory hotel quarantine," he said.
