IRELAND'S Covid-19 reproduction number - or R number - has dropped to 1.6 despite a number of clusters being identified over the past few days.
It had risen to 1.8 last week, just a couple of days before three Irish counties; Kildare, Offaly and Laois were plunged back into lockdown.
Professor Philip Nolan, chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, says it's no easy task accurately estimating the reproduction number when there are a number of clusters.
"It's very difficult to estimate reproduction number when you've got a mix of outbreaks and some disease in the community," Prof Nolan said.
"This week's best estimate of the reproduction number is that it is around 1.6.
"The confidence intervals are very wide and that’s because case numbers are increasing and decreasing day-by-day, that uncertainty is related to the fluctuations in base numbers.
"It's very much driven by the outbreaks so it’s estimating reproduction number under these circumstances are not particularly valid.
"If we look at the isolated cases alone it’s even more difficult to estimate but it looks like the reproduction number, more widely in the community, is lower and closer to one."
On Wednesday, 40 additional cases of Covid-19 were diagnosed. This number was down on last week's, though Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn warned that the numbers were still higher than they were in June and early July.
"Although today’s number is positive relative to what we saw last weekend, we remain concerned about both the number of cases that are being reported and their distribution across the country," Dr Glynn said.
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