HSE chair warns of extended restrictions unless "full lockdown" is followed for entire month

Cllr Paraic Brady said he believed all services bar supermarkets to enable essential food shopping and home heating distributors should be allowed to remain open in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19.

The Fine Gael councillor insisted a draconian type lockdown whereby people were ordered to stay at home was the only way health bosses would be able to suppress the virus and begin the rollout of a nationwide vaccine programme.

"I am calling for that, yes," he told the Leader.

"You have to close the whole country down, it's as simple as that. The rise in numbers (of cases) is alarming to say the least and it's frightening quite frankly."

Cllr Brady's comments come less than 24 hours after the country recorded its highest ever daily figure of confirmed coronavirus cases.

Some 6,110 new Covid cases were recorded along with six deaths.

Meanwhile, 776 patients remained in hospital last night after testing positive for Covid-19 while 70 people were in intensive care units.

A Cabinet Committee on Covid-19 will meet to discuss the escalating public health crisis, and a key focus of the meeting will be on whether schools should remain closed beyond their extended January 11 return date from the Christmas holidays.

Cllr Brady said it was his belief almost every aspect of public life needed to be temporarily shut for the remainder of the month in order to avoid the risk of lockdown measures continuing into February and beyond.

"All services should be closed and closed now," he said.

"People can live without clothes and the like. The most important things are heating oil and fodder for livestock but as regards everything else, that can be done without."

Cllr Brady also called for greater clarity to be relayed out to the wider public concerning the imminent rollout of the State's Covid-19 vaccination programme, arguing "not enough information" had been made available by health chiefs to date.