Half of people with symptoms of Covid-19 are waiting up to three days contact a GP according to deputy chief medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn.
Yesterday, 1,318 new cases of the virus were confirmed in the State, with 75 additional deaths.
According to the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) the number of people with the virus in public hospitals fell to 1,239 last night, the lowest level since January 8th, with 187 people with Covid-19 in ICUs.
Dr Glynn says he has noticed a clear pattern recently and urged people to contact their GP as soon as they recognise symptoms.
"About one in two people are taking three days or longer to come forward, from the time of which they first experience symptoms to the point at which they get their swab.
"We know the time from referral for a swab to actually getting the swab is in general less than a day, so it suggests one in two people are spending at least a day at home or in their workplace wondering about whether to come forward.
"Of course, that's more than enough time for this virus to spread."
According to Nphet, the national 14-day incidence rate has now fallen to 397.1, while the five-day moving average number of cases is 1,102.
Chair of Nphet's Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, Professor Philip Nolan warned that Ireland is likely to see a marked decline in progress over the coming weeks, but encouraged the public not to be disheartened by the plateau.
"The next few weeks will be difficult for all of us, as we bring the daily case levels below 1,000 per day, our progress will seem to slow down.
"It is now more important than ever that we continue our efforts to bring case numbers down towards the very low levels we achieved in June and July. In that regard, it is very good news that our estimates of the R (reproductive) number is well below one – in the region of 0.5–0.8.
"I noted last week that the testing of close contacts will impact on case numbers in the coming days. We shouldn’t be disappointed by this, it shows that we have moved from the mitigation phase of the last few weeks, back to the containment phase where we are tracking down every possible chain of transmission," Prof Nolan said.
