NPHET has recommended the closure of non-essential retail from St Stephen's Day.
A further 938 new cases were confirmed last night with 13 additional deaths, while the reproductive number has risen to between 1.5 and 1.8
Restaurants and pubs serving food will close at 3pm today - while hairdressers and barbers will also shut later.
Professor Philip Nolan, chair of NPHET's modelling advisory group, doesn't think those measures will bring the virus under control.
He said: "Given the nature of the measures and our experience to date... I'm not confident they alone are sufficient, particularly given where we're starting from.
"It's hard to see how that array of measures would bring the reproduction number down below one."
