Deputy Chief Medical Officer: Ireland has passed worst of the pandemic this year

Dr Ronan Glynn says he's hopeful people won't have to go through what happened in January, again.

NPHET's reporting "steady progress" against all indicators of the disease, with the latest figures showing 829 new cases including just 36 in Cork.

Meanwhile the numbers in public hospitals are down around 46% from its peak last month to 1,100, while 175 patients are in ICU.

Dr Ronan Glynn says there are many reasons to be optimistic:

"We have already passed what is the worst of this disease this year and that we will not have to go back through what we went through in January, again, I think there are many reasons to have confidence if that's the case. First and foremost, is the performance of the population over the past number of weeks, and their willingness to keep going with these measures. On top of that, we have the vaccines being rolled out."