The Chief Medical Officer has said he is "very concerned" after Ireland recorded a major jump in Covid-19 cases.
Dr Tony Holohan warned that the 429 new infections are "a sign" that we must reduce our social contacts in the coming weeks.
The stark rise brings the average number of daily cases above 300, and increases the 14-day incidence rate to 84.3.
Dr Holohan said: "Today, I am concerned that we are seeing the incidence of COVID-19 rising again.
"429 is a large number of cases by the standard of recent weeks and the five day moving average has now increased above 300 per day.
“Our efforts in Level 5 in recent weeks brought the 14-day incidence rate down to 78 per 100,000 population, put us in a position of having the lowest disease incidence in Europe and ultimately protected many people and saved many lives.
“Take today’s figures as a sign that we all must now reduce our social contacts, limit our interactions with those outside our households, weigh the risks of what socialising we are planning over the next two weeks, so that we can all have as safe a Christmas as possible.”
Sadly, anyone who contracted the virus since Friday will have to spend Christmas in quarantine.
Of those to be diagnosed in the past 24 hours, 230 were women and 198 were men, 66% of who were under the age of 45.
The average age of those infected was 34.
Dublin saw a large spike, recording 122 new cases.
Donegal also saw a big jump to 46, while Limerick had 30.
The number of patients in hospital battling the virus is up again to 193, while 31 people are in intensive care units.
There were 13 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
