Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said it is unlikely we will see any widespread reopening of the country by March 5.
Current Level Five restrictions are set to be in place until that date when Government will review the lockdown.
However Minister Donnelly today echoed the warnings from the Taoiseach that the lockdown would likely go on longer as he warned that case numbers will still be the focus rather than how many people have been vaccinated.
Speaking to RTE Morning Ireland Donnelly said: "We'll have to be lead by public health advice at that point. Things are moving in the right direction in terms of the case numbers.
"But as Dr Holohan said last night the rate of decrease is slowing and we're watching that very closely.
"As we come to the 5th of March which is when the measures have been extended to, I think to be honest [the decision] will be less around how many people have been vaccinated and more to do with the progress of the disease and how much it has been suppressed in the community.
"It's probably too early to speculate on exactly what will happen in March. What we can say with some certainty is that everything would not be opening from the 6th of March particularly with this UK variant.
"For the next five weeks we've got to focus on two things.
"Suppressing the virus, and that really means people staying at home. We've got to focus on getting the vaccines in and getting them into people's arms as quickly as possible and then start looking at a controlled and careful reopening."
Donnelly added that 1.1 million vaccine doses will have arrived in Ireland by the end of March.
Speaking about the prospect of the return of big sporting and music events Donnelly said that he would hope to see them return this year it will depend on how effective the vaccines prove to be.
The Minister added: "One of the things I've asked NPHET to do is to look at how quickly the risk of serious illness and fatality goes down as we vaccinate the most vulnerable.
"NPHET will be looking at, as we go through March, April and May how we are doing on the numbers and given that we will have vaccinated the most vulnerable group, what is the risk profile to the country."
