IRELAND’S COVID-19 R number has fallen to a range of 0.4 to 0.7 with case numbers expected to drop dramatically by the end of February.
Speaking at a Department of Health brief, Professor Philip Nolan predicted cases could decrease to anywhere between 200 and 400 over the next month.
Professor Nolan attributed the sharp decline to the public’s continued adherence to the government’s health measures and coronavirus restrictions.
He said: "It's translating into a reproduction number which this week is actually lower than the one we reported last week - in the region of 0.4 to 0.7."
The R number refers to the rate at which coronavirus spreads from one infected individual to another.
For example, an R number of 1 indicates that, on average, an infected person will pass it on to one other person on average.
"In terms of our modelling of likely case numbers into the future - if we keep this up and I really caveat it, if we collectively keep this up - we could be seeing case numbers as low as 200 to 400 by the end of February," Professor Nolan continued.
"In terms of our modelling of likely case numbers into the future - if we keep this up and I really caveat it, if we collectively keep this up - we could be seeing case numbers as low as 200 to 400 by the end of February.
"In other words to be in a similar position to where we were at the beginning of December."
He added: "And equally if we keep this up, it will have a very positive effect on the numbers of people in hospital and in intensive care.
"We could see 600 to 800 people in hospital - that's a very high number, there's still a long way to go after that - but nonetheless, it would be huge progress over where we are.
"And we could see 60 to 80 people in intensive care."
1151 people in hospital, 109 in ICU. We can turn this around. What we are doing now, and what we do over the coming weeks, will determine the course of some peoples lives, and the impact on our health services. Stay home, follow public health guidance, protect each other. pic.twitter.com/WyfA5x1OVF
— Professor Philip Nolan (@PhilipNolan_SFI) January 8, 2021
Though Professor Nolan was full of praise for the public and the "huge progress even over the last week" he acknowledged that the "level of disease in the population remains very high."
He warned: "Over the last seven days to yesterday, we were reporting on average 1,700 cases per day.
"That compares to a peak in early January of 6,500. So the daily incidence at the moment is about a quarter of what it was in January but still several times what it was in early December."
The positive figures come as the number of people being admitted to hospital continued to decline while the number in hospital has also fallen rapidly.
Despite this, Professor Nolan acknowledged that ICU figures across Ireland remain "high and quite static" at 216 as of this morning.
However, the number of new admissions is down from the January peak of 20 per day to an avergae of 15 per day as of last week.
Commenting on the decreases, Professor Nolan said:"Our experience in previous periods of restriction is that early in the restrictions people are very careful in their adherence to the measures.
"And then there's a natural drift, that people tend to relax and increase their mobility and increase their contacts.
"We're not seeing this and this is the reason why case numbers continue to decline so rapidly."
The positive numbers come as a further 47 deaths were reported as a result of Covid-19, while a further 1,466 cases were recorded.
