A member of the National Public Health Emergency Team says the group does not want to advise the government to introduce another lockdown.
But Director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, Dr Cillian de Gascun, says the high transmissibility of the Delta variant means that basic public health measures will have less impact than they had at the start of the pandemic.
Earlier this week, updated modeling revealed that up to 200,000 people could be infected with Covid next month, if the growth of the virus continues at the current rate.
Dr Cillian de Gascun says the most vulnerable and the health service will need to be protected from this surge, even if NPHET does not want to impose restrictions:
