Mandatory hotel quarantine for foreign tourists would help to eliminate Covid-19 from Ireland, according to a leading expert.
Dr Niall Conroy is a consultant in public health medicine in Queensland, the rule is currently in place in the Australian state.
Queensland has had 34,000 fewer coronavirus cases than Ireland, despite having a similar population.
Dr Conroy, who is from Dublin, says forcing people from overseas to stay in a hotel for two weeks, has been key.
"Mandatory hotel quarantine allowed us to concentrate on the cases that were actually in the community, rather than worrying about those cases as well as constant streaming of new cases of Covid coming in from overseas. It's worked really well for us and we're back to a state of relative normality in Queensland. We can go to restaurants, you can go to your dance classes or whatever."
There was one new death and 363 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed in the Republic of Ireland yesterday, according to the Department of Health.
Of the cases notified yesterday, almost two thirds were under 45 years of age. Just under half were confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case, while 58 cases were identified as community transmission.
154 of yesterday's cases were located in Dublin, with another 40 in Cork, 23 in Donegal, 16 in Wexford, 15 in Roscommon, 14 in Galway, 14 in Monaghan, 11 in Kildare, 11 in Meath, 11 in Wicklow, nine in Limerick, six in Clare, five in Mayo, five in Tipperary and the remaining 29 cases spread across nine other counties.
There has now been a total of 35,740 confirmed Covid-19 cases in Ireland.
