Garda checkpoints are in place across Kildare, Laois and Offaly to make sure residents comply with new COVID-19 restrictions.
People are being asked to only travel out of the counties for essential reasons like medical appointments, work or for childcare.
It follows a spike in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, with 226 cases in those three counties over the past two weeks.
Local politicians have voiced their concerns about the lockdown, with Social Democrats co-leader and Kildare North TD Catherine Murphy saying there's a sense "this could and should have been avoided".
This lockdown is different no notice and a real feeling that this could and should have been avoided. https://t.co/qOrohkgOX3
— Catherine Murphy (@CathMurphyTD) August 7, 2020
While shops can remain open, the likes of gyms, cinemas and bingo halls have been told to close.
Restaurants can only offer take-away services and a small number of outdoor dining seats.
The HSE has also moved to re-activate drive-in testing centres in the counties, with Newbridge among those set up today.
CEO Paul Reid said: "We're increasing our resourcing on our public health teams in those areas.
"We've increased the numbers of people over the weekend and throughout next week in our contact tracing.
"Our testing centres... we've increased the opening hours of the centres that exist, and we've also increased centres this morning."
