The Chief Medical Officer is urging people to only meet people they’re planning to spend Christmas with this week.
A further 5,279 COVID cases were announced last, with Dr Tony Holohan suggesting Omicron now accounts for about two-thirds of the country’s cases.
Despite the high case numbers, the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital and ICU continued to fall last night.
There were 396 COVID patients in hospitals around the country at 8pm – a fall of 23 on the day before and 61 on the week before.
Dr Cliona Ni Cheallaigh, Infectious Diseases Consultant at St James's Hospital in Dublin, said Omicron is ‘spreading like wildfire’.
“What is more important is how many of the cases become seriously unwell and require hospital care or have their lives threatened by COVID,” she said.
“I think that will determine what level of restrictions are needed in the following weeks and we just don’t know that yet.
“It definitely spreads like wildfire; I think we can see that very clearly and if that results in people becoming seriously unwell, then we will need to think about further restrictions.”
She said health officials will be waiting to see what happens with the hospitals in the next week or two.
“I have just been looking at hospitalisations in London and they seem to be increasing and there seems to be a lot of young unvaccinated people getting very sick with Omicron – which is a worry,” she said.
