The five-day moving average of Covid cases has risen by only 7 per cent over the past week,
compared to 67 per cent the previous week.
It now stands at 1,272 - after 1,361 new infections were reported yesterday.
The HSE's chief clinical officer, Colm Henry, says cases have started to 'plateau' over the past few days.
But Dr Eoghan De Barra, an infectious diseases consultant in Beaumont Hospital, says we're not out of the woods yet.
"Remember they're the cases, not the admissions to hospital, and increasingly that's the more important metric.
"More younger people are getting this and mainly young people don't have severe illness.
"It's how many of them end up in hospital, that conversion factor."
