NPHET Recommends Closure Of Non-Essential Retail From St. Stephen's Day

The Chief Medical Officer has warned the spread of Covid-19 is "out of control" with the number of cases doubling in less than a week.

A further 938 new cases were confirmed last night including 110 in Cork. 

There was also 13 additional deaths, while the R number has risen to between 1.5 and 1.8 - the highest since March.

Restaurants and pubs serving food will close at 3pm this afternoon as part of new restrictions - while hairdressers and barbers will also shut later.

But Professor Philip Nolan, chair of NPHET's modelling advisory group, doesn't think those measures will bring the virus back under control:

"I'm not confident that they will. Given the nature of the measures and our experience today. I'm not confident that they alone are sufficient, particularly given where we're starting from, given we're starting from a reproduction number that's that's certainly 1.6 could be as high as 1.8. It's hard to see how that array of measures would would bring reproduction number down below 1."