Ireland is "very close" to zero coronavirus cases, an expert has claimed.
It comes after New Zealand's coronavirus lockdown is set to be completely lifted after it successfully eliminated the killer bug.
The country has no active cases for the first time since Covid-19 arrived there.
And Anthony Staines, Professor of Health Systems at Dublin City University, said a number of other countries, including Ireland, have also made huge progress in crushing the virus.
He told Morning Ireland on RTE Radio One: "Greece has managed to do this to a very substantial extent, Luxembourg has nearly done it, Austria has nearly done it, Iceland has almost certainly done it, Finland has almost certainly done it, and Norway has almost done it.
"So we're actually very close. There's a group European countries, we're one of them, that are very close to zero, and most of the others have said explicitly we want to get to zero. Now we haven't said that."
However Prof Staines made clear that small isolated outbreaks are still possible even when the virus is effectively suppressed.
He added: "We will be reporting new cases for some time to come, because it isn't perfect, but it reduces it from a major crisis that cuts right across our economy, to an important but manageable public health issue.
"If we're having four or five cases a day, we can bring that number down and we can keep it down.
"We saw in South Korea, they brought the cases down to zero for about a month. There was a single outbreak, which has now spread to about 200 cases, but they've now brought those numbers down again.
"So this is a process, it isn't a wave of the magic wand and we go to zero. This is a process that we can do, and the steps are affordable."
Prof Staines advocated for an all-Ireland approach to tackling the virus, and insisted a prolonged lockdown is not necessary to crush the curve.
He said: "We are moving out of lockdown, we are opening up our economy, and we now say we are trying to get to zero.
"We do things like wear masks, test people at the airports, we do things like an aggressive test and trace regime, and we go through the lockdown from where we are today. And we make decisions about how we move out.
"We've had an emergency response to a crisis, and that was the right thing to do, I'm not criticising that.
"But now is the time to sit down and look at those measures and think 'well, actually this one is very important', but 'this one is less important'."
