Dr Ronan Glynn has asked the public not to meet up for cans and pints on St Patrick's Day.
During tonight's press conference, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer expressed fears over people congregating this Wednesday.
“We simply have too much disease in the country, we do not want people to be congregating over pints. We don't want people to be meeting up indoors,” said Glynn.
He adds: “We don’t want people to be buying cans and meeting up and drinking them on St Patrick’s Day. None of those messages again are what people want to hear, but unfortunately, our message has to be consistent
Glynn said that Nphet does not want to be “killjoys” and that they're asking people not to meet up for a drink because they know "what will happen if people meet up. Some of those people will end up in hospital and some of those people will die."
He adds: “We don’t want people [buying takeaway pints] or buying cans and meeting up indoors.".
Glynn's Nphet colleague Professor Philip Nolan also asked the public to "pull back" from any unnecessary social interactions over the next fortnight.
Earlier tonight, health authorities confirmed that Ireland has recorded 575 new cases of Covid-19, but thankfully, no further deaths were announced.
Despite this positive news, there has been a recent spike in cases, and Professor Nolan has asked the public to continue to limit their social contacts in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.
"The situation that we're in now is very similar to the situation that we were in immediately after Halloween, where for a week to 10 days, case numbers increased," he explained.
"What's happening this week with case numbers relates to mixing and social interaction that happened 10-14 days ago.
"We're dependent that when we look to the coming fortnight that we've collectively heard the message to pull back from that level of social interaction and that we'll see cases decline again."
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