The National Public Health Emergency Team will meet today to review the progress being made to reduce the incidence of Covid-19

The National Public Health Emergency Team will meet today to review the progress being made to reduce the incidence of Covid-19, exactly two weeks after the introduction of the Level-5 social and economic restrictions.
The Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan has urged those who are close contacts of confirmed cases to stay at home for a full 14-day period.
He said that by doing so they will be playing their part in the national effort to bring the virus right back down to where we all need it to be.
Two weeks into the Level 5 restrictions and there are plenty of favourable COVID-19 data trends for NPHET to consider today.
Prime among them will be the news, revealed by the Minister for Health Steven Donnelly yesterday that the Reproduction or R number for the virus has fallen below one.
This means that the virus is being suppressed.
He said the R number is now between 0.7 and 0.9, implying that daily cases numbers can be expected to continue falling steadily by an average of about 3 per cent per day.
Nevertheless, further efforts will be required if the target of only 50 to 100 cases per day is to be achieved by December 2nd  when Level 5 restrictions are due to end.
Last night, the Taoiseach Micheál Martin told his parliamentary party that the restrictions are unlikely to be lifted before then.
This is despite a 30 per cent reduction in the 14-day incidence of the disease over the past fortnight and Ireland now having the seventh lowest disease incidence rate out of 31 European countries.

• 8 COVID-19 related deaths and 444 new cases yesterday
• 158 cases in Dublin, 48 in Cork, and 36 in Limerick
• The cumulative 14-day incidence is now 212.7 per 100,000 people
• Incidence rate is down 30% in the two weeks of Level-5 restrictions
• Incidence rate in Dublin is down 16.5% since Level-5
• Biggest reductions in disease incidence under Level-5 have been in Leitrim (-75%), Cavan (-65%), Westmeath (-63%), Wexford (-59%), Meath (-52%), Monaghan (-49%), Offaly (-47%)
• Disease incidence has increased in Waterford, Tipperary, and Carlow, despite Level-5 restrictions
• Only 6 European countries (Finland, Norway, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Greece) out of a total of 31 countries monitored by the European Centre for Disease Control now have a lower 14-day disease incidence than Ireland.