Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said that "things have stabilised" over the past ten days in relation to the spread of Covid-19.
Speaking in the Dáil, he said the reproductive rate has fallen to somewhere between 1 and 1.4. Mr Donnelly said that while the number of new cases of the virus has been rising - and the average close contacts of five were still quite high - the recent stabilisation of the situation was "good news".
The minister said 51,000 tests had been carried out in the past seven days, with a "very low positivity rate of 0.3". He said this suggested the prevalence of the virus in the population was low.