An infectious diseases expert has warned that Dublin could remain at Level 3 for months and even years if the R number does not dramatically change soon.
Professor Sam McConkey said that if the R number remains at 1, Level 3 could be still in place over Christmas and into 2021.
The head of the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine at RCSI stated that the number was currently “very unsatisfactory".
He told Newstalk Breakfast: "The issue is [If the R number] stays at 1, we're in this for months and years and none of us want to stay here for months or years, it's very unsatisfactory."
Professor McConkey also added that the situation in Dublin, with numbers 'levelling off' is leading to a state of 'purgatory'.
"It's like being in a bad place for a long time, you don't know how long you're going to be there, I personally feel levelling off is not a good thing.
"Dublin figures have stabilised, but to be stabilised, where we're at, at Level 3 for a long time like 6 months or a year or more is not a solution to this.
“I don't feel that living like this for a long period of time is an adequate sort of public sector response to this."
He added: “What's happening now because there's so many outbreaks, it's really challenging for the understaffed, underpaid, under organised public health service to follow up on all the outbreaks.
“We're now getting 80 to 90 outbreaks each day and each of those outbreaks, not only to individuals needing phone calls, but the public health nurses and doctors getting involved with how to control each of those outbreaks and advising people who run those locations on how to stop that outbreak spreading."
