Ireland's Covid-19 situation is currently "out of control" as NPHET have reportedly recommended Level 5 restrictions for six weeks.
Health officials met yesterday to discuss the current coronavirus situation in the country.
And reports this morning suggest that Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan issued a stark warning in his advice to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly.
In the letter, NPHET is said to have recommended that we should move to Level 5 for six weeks, although schools would remain open, according to the Irish Daily Mail.
It came after Dr Holohan warned of a "rapidly deteriorating trajectory nationally" of coronavirus.
The CMO expressed "extreme concern" at the increased spread of the virus over the last week in particular.
He said the number of positive cases over the past week has increased by 82% compared with the previous seven days, from 3,514 to 6,382.
At a National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) press conference last night the situation was summarised as "no improvement and potentially an acceleration".
Additional restrictions have been in place in Dublin for several weeks, but while some stabilisation was detected last week, over the last four to five days high case counts have been recorded.
Dr Holohan said levels of transmission are now so high that it is not possible to find the source of the virus in many cases.
He said officials have not yet seen a "detectable change in behavioural level of the kind we would like to see... that's a matter of grave concern to us".
"We have reflected on that and in the usual way we have agreed on advice and will provide that advice through the Minister for Health to Government to consider," he added.
"We give our advice, the Government has to consider that advice in light of a range of other considerations, and come to a balanced assessment as to what the appropriate way of responding as a country to that advice is," he said.
He added that it is clear the disease is "not in control" adding that many other countries across Europe are experiencing a similar situation.
