An infectious diseases expert says any tourists from overseas who doesn't quarantine themselves for two weeks should be jailed.
It comes as the World Health Organisation reports a daily increase in global Covid-19 cases of over 230,000. 66,000 of them were in the United States.
Here, seventeen people tested positive for the virus and no further deaths were reported.
Direct flights to Ireland resumed from several US cities in recent days, despite the country continuing to record high numbers of cases.
Professor Sam McConkey of the Royal College of Surgeons says asking tourists to promise to self-isolate isn't enough to protect us;
"All it takes is ten or twenty American tourists in Mountjoy for a month or two and suddenly the message is going to get through...I think we need a sense of justice and a sense of fair play that if people are flouting the regulations that there are fairly tough, predictable sentences."
