Increasing testing and contact tracing as well as a reduction in the number of new cases, are crucial to Ireland's ability to ease the severe restrictions that have been in place since March.
The coming week will be a vitally important one as efforts continue to achieve these aims amid increasing public frustration, writes Orla O'Donnell. The latest figures from the Health Service Executive show there are just over 1,000 people in the country's acute hospitals with confirmed or suspected cases of Covid-19.
133 of them are in intensive care. The number of new confirmed cases of the virus has risen by less than 5% on seven of the last eight days, but hundreds of new cases continue to be announced daily and more than 1000 were announced over
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