Ireland should not be considering "closing things down" at this point, a leading health expert has said.
Professor Sam McConkey, an infectious disease specialist at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), said he would rather see a ramping up of vaccination capacity - back to levels we saw in the summer - than shutting down the country.
"I don't feel we should be closing things down or restricting people more at this point," he told Newstalk's Breakfast show.
"What I really would like to see is a big increase in vaccination capacity like what we had back in the summer, when we were rolling out vaccines very, very fast.
"That capacity has been lost and I would like to see it rebuilt in the next day or two.
"Then (we can) boost most of our population over the next 20 days or so."
Prof McConkey said opening hours and staffing numbers at vaccine centres should be increased and we should stick to socialising in small groups around Christmas.
Centres giving out the jab should have two shifts a day and open for 12 hours to get vaccines out there, he said.
He added: "We've seen our neighbours across the water are trying exactly the same strategy - I think they're right in that.
"I think we should be encouraging folk to use masks, to work from home, to socialise in small groups, as we've all been mostly doing for the last couple of weeks.
"So, especially coming up to Christmas when we will visit our friends and relatives, ideally try and do that outside.
"So maybe we can have a few little drinks outside with our neighbours, rather than having them in for tea."
Prof McConkey also said there are "reasons why" the Omicron Covid-19 variant is being treated with great care in the UK and urged businesses to prepare "stand-ins" in case somebody gets sick.
He added: "There's a lot of uncertainty of how severe this new Omicron wave will be.
"In South Africa it hasn't been too severe, but there's reasons why - in UK and Britain - they're worried that it will be more severe.
"We don't know how clinically severe it'll be. It will definitely come, it will definitely spread through the population, but many of us are hopeful that it won't be as bad as some of the previous strains.
"Anything could happen in the next couple of weeks and I do think businesses need to have someone for me and someone for you, if we get sick and are not at work, we need somebody who can stand in for us and maybe even someone to stand in for the stand-in.
"So all businesses that want to keep their service on the road need a couple of stand-ins for every role that's important."
