Ireland has been told it has two weeks to drive down community transmission of COVID-19 to give "more flexibility" when easing measures on December.
Level 5 restrictions are due to end on December 1, but the number of averages cases of the coronavirus has risen within the last week.
The 5-day average of daily cases has jumped to 424 after being at 350 a week ago.
And a grim warning has come from Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan only a day after his colleague Dr Ronan Glynn warned that the Irish public needs to focus on their actions now rather than in two or six weeks time.
Dr Holohan said: "I am increasingly concerned that the positive trends we had seen recently have not been maintained.
“The 5-day moving average of daily cases has increased from an average of 350 cases on the 11th November to 424 today.
“We have two weeks to continue in our efforts to drive down community transmission of this disease as much as possible. The lower the incidence the more flexibility the country will have in easing measures.”
Yesterday, Ireland reported 366 new cases of COVID-19, with 84 of those in Dublin. There were a further 11 coronavirus related deaths.
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