Ireland recorded another 429 cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, with 17 counties seeing a rise in infections.
Dublin's number of new cases jumped up to 122, while Donegal and Kilkenny also saw a worrying rise.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said that he is "concerned" about Sunday's figures, which included one further death.
"Today, I am concerned that we are seeing the incidence of COVID-19 rising again", he said.
"429 is a large number of cases by the standard of recent weeks and the five day moving average has now increased above 300 per day.
“Our efforts in Level 5 in recent weeks brought the 14-day incidence rate down to 78 per 100,000 population, put us in a position of having the lowest disease incidence in Europe and ultimately protected many people and saved many lives.
“Take today’s figures as a sign that we all must now reduce our social contacts, limit our interactions with those outside our households, weigh the risks of what socialising we are planning over the next two weeks, so that we can all have as safe a Christmas as possible.”
Here's the exact locations of each of the new cases announced on Sunday:
Donegal - 30
Kilkenny - 18
Louth - 16
Carlow - 8
Longford - 11
Monaghan - <5
Limerick - 30
Cavan - 10
Mayo - 11
Wicklow - 11
Laois - 22
Dublin - 122
Tipperary - 15
Waterford - <5
Offaly - 10
Meath - 15
Galway - 11
Kildare - 16
Sligo - 8
Roscommon - <5
Wexford - 11
Clare - <5
Westmeath - <5
Cork - 20
Leitrim - <5, and
Kerry - <5.
