Restrictions on group activities will be with us for some time, according to the chair of NPHET's Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group.
Prof Nolan said a national approach to limiting discretionary contacts "and not going wild and allowing the virus to transmit while we are socialising" is a better approach in the first instance than regional restrictions on movements. He said that in Kildare you could map some cases along the road network in the county and into neighbouring counties. This showed how interconnected the spread of cases around Kildare was, he added.
He said this differs to Tipperary at the moment, where a large number of cases are well explained, in defined clusters and the spread is under control. He said Dublin has a high population density and a mobile population with a slow rise of cases. Prof Nolan said that by international standards our testing system is very good, though everyone is anxious to bring down the turnaround time and keep it to 48 hours to allow contact tracing within 72 hours.