More than 3,000 cases of Covid-19 will be confirmed in Ireland later today, Professor Philip Nolan has said.
The NPHET member said that daily numbers could peak at 6,000 in the next seven to 10 days.
Speaking to Katie Hannon on RTE Radio One this afternoon, the Professor said that Ireland is "facing unprecedented levels of community transmission".
Today's increase in cases will be down to the backlog being reported as well as the newly reported infections.
Earlier, Prof. Nolan said: "Stay home. 581 people in hospital with COVID-19 this morning, up from 255 on 24 December. Positive tests, cases and hospitalisations are doubling every 7-10 days. We can stop this, but it's essential that each and every one of us plays our part to turn the tide. Stay home."
You can follow all the Covid-19 updates in Ireland today with our live blog here.
Earlier today it was confirmed that nine more cases of the new strain of Covid-19 first discovered in Britain have been detected in the Republic of Ireland.
But Dr Cillian De Gascun, the director of the UCD National Virus Reference Laboratory has said that data suggests that the UK variant was not responsible for the recent “significant and concerning” spike in coronavirus case numbers here.
Dr De Gascun wrote on Twitter that further testing this week of Covid samples dating from December 23 to 29 has detected 9 additional UK variant cases in Ireland.
He added this brings the total number of cases identified to 16 of 169 tested to date.
