Ireland has passed the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic this year, according to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer.
Dr Ronan Glynn says he's hopeful people won't have to go through what they went through in January again.
NPHET's reporting "steady progress" against all indicators of the disease, with the latest figures showing 829 new cases and 6 deaths.
Meanwhile the numbers in hospital are down 60% from the peak to 1,212, while 176 patients are in ICU.
Dr Ronan Glynn says there are many reasons to be optimistic.
He said: "We have already passed what is the worst of this disease this year, and we will not have to go back through what we went through in January again.
"There are many reasons of confidence why that is the case - first and foremost is the performance of the population over the past number of weeks, and their willingness to keep going with these measures.
"On top of that, we have vaccination. And on top of that, we will move into a much better period of weather.
"People will be outside - which we know is a lot safer than the type of indoor environments that would have dominated in the autumn and winter period."
Level five restrictions are currently in place until at least March 5th, with ministers saying they'll take a cautious approach to easing restrictions.
