Ireland cannot pursue a 'zero Covid' strategy, the chief medical officer has said.
The strategy advocates driving down virus cases to zero, thereby allowing the country to return to relative normality.
It has been adopted by countries such as New Zealand, which has almost entirely suppressed Covid.
However, Dr Tony Holohan says this would not be possible in Ireland: 'We're a small economy dependent on those links that we've linked with the rest of Europe, we simply couldn't seal the border of the country'.
It comes as close contact testing resumes today after it was suspended at the end of last year due to the high number of people presenting with Covid-19 symptoms.
The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has fallen by over 400 over the past ten days.
Latest figures show there are 1,548 patients in hospital with the virus - compared with 1,954 on the 19th of January.
213 people are in intensive care with the disease, and 13 hospitals have no ICU beds available.
1,466 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed yesterday, along with 47 deaths.
