It was his first press briefing since he returned to his role as Chief Medical Officer on Monday.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan has said that Ireland is in a “strong position” to ease restrictions next week in spite of the highest daily cases so far this month being announced earlier today.
At the press conference on Thursday, the CMO said that Ireland is “not where we need to be in terms of vaccinations” however, the vaccination programme “does give hope” that restrictions can be eased soon.
Holohan added that he is worried that people will “get ahead of restrictions” when they do begin to ease, jeopardising the reopening timeline.
“We are in a strong position in that transmission levels have reduced substantially and the roll-out of vaccination is protecting more and more of those at risk from the severe effects of Covid-19,” he said.
“If we can maintain our current position there is hope that we can look forward to a real easing of measures, but it is as important as ever that we don’t put that progress at risk by letting our collective guard down too much, or too early.”
Dr Holohan returned to work on Monday after taking time off following the death of his wife Dr Emer Feely in February.
There were 10 further deaths of people with Covid-19 and 617 new cases confirmed this evening.
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