NPHET warns Government of threat of UK variant

NPHET has warned the government it will be more difficult to stay on top of COVID-19 over the next few weeks, as the UK variant of the virus continues to take hold. 

In a letter from last week Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said he expects the reproductive number of the virus to rise and their more optimistic scenarios are now highly unlikely. 

The government is under pressure from the opposition to change its approach to managing COVID when restrictions start to ease. 

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said they're not ruling anything out - but added there's no silver bullet either, "We don't want to go to level four on the fifth of March, only to have to go back again three weeks later, four weeks later, and I think that is the very strong demand from the public now, is they want to know that if we are going to ease restrictions on the fifth of March, or whenever, that's going to be sustained"