A leading expert has said a much more localised approach to contact tracing is needed to help curb the spread of coronavirus.
Professor Sam McConkey says he's worried about the direction Ireland is currently heading in when it comes to COVID-19.
He also has suggested the word lockdown is 'too melodramatic' - and much more 'finesse' is needed in our response.
Yesterday saw more than 400 new cases confirmed in the Republic - the highest daily number since April.
Professor McConkey - head of the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine at RCSI - told The Pat Kenny Show that the 'hundred-fold' change compared to June will continue to grow unless we do things differently.
He said: "The way we've been doing things from June until now won't carry us through the next few months in a satisfactory way.
"The metaphor I used... was like driving a car, you're on the road but heading towards a large tree. We all know we would use the steering wheel and gently swerve to avoid it.
"It's like the frog that's in the water, that's cold to start with and gradually heating up. The frog never jumps out of the water, because it doesn't realise the danger it's in from being boiled alive... we really need to jump rather than sit like the frog."
Controlling the virus
Professor McConkey said around 1.5 billion people live in parts of the world where coronavirus has been controlled.
He observed: "It's not just small islands like the Faroes in Greenland: it's most of Australia. Australia's 25 million people: that's five times bigger than us in population.
"Melbourne as we know a few months ago, they had lots of cases. But they've got involved locally, and looked at the housing and apartments where it was spreading.
"I was on a call with one of the senior leaders in Australia. They were telling me it's young Irish nurses who were backpacking in Australia for the year that they've employed to do their contact tracing.
"They've set up face-to-face local contact tracing teams... it's just not locking down all of Australia."
Australia has had just over 27,000 cases since the virus began - compared to over 34,000 in Ireland.
NPHET is considering the issue of enhanced contact tracing, and officials will discuss it again this week.
Meanwhile, Professor McConkey also said that he could "go on a tirade" against the word lockdown.
He observed: "It should be banned - it's too binary, melodramatic and simplistic. What we need is much more finesse, much more local, detailed and thorough.
"We need teams of local people working in the areas... asking where have you been for the last two weeks.
"There's a lot we can do at local level to control it."
