A sharp fall in COVID-19 cases in Ireland is likely to stall following the ending on Dec. 1 of six weeks of strict lockdown, a senior health official said on Thursday.
"I wouldn't expect case counts to decline any further in the coming week or 10 days," Philip Nolan, Chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group told journalists after reporting a seven-day daily new case average of 254, down from almost 1,200 six weeks ago.
Ireland’s COVID-19 reproduction number, which measures the number of people who become infected from each positive case, is currently between 0.8 and 1, but is likely to rise over the Christmas period as social contacts increase, Nolan said.
(Reporting by Conor Humphries, Editing by Franklin Paul)
