Public health expert Dr Gabriel Scally has said that the Irish and UK governments should ask families to postpone family gatherings this Christmas to the summer solstice in June.
As an incentive for people to keep their distance from families over the coming holiday period, he said two extra bank holidays should be offered in June 2021.
By then, he said, the vaccine rollout will have helped enormously. Dr Scally, who is the President of Epidemiology & Public Health at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, also said he really worries about what will happen over the coming weeks, saying there has been little discussion about travel.