Health officials expect coronavirus hospital admissions to drop by 70% in the next four weeks.

The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) has said the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital could fall to about 250 by mid-March.

There were 813 COVID-19 patients in hospital last night, with 155 people in intensive care.

NPHET has said the number of patients in intensive care could fall as low as 40 by March 15th.

Officials are also expecting to see case numbers drop to around 200 per day by March 1st.

Variants of concern

Infectious Diseases Consultant Professor Jack Lambert told Newstalk that the UK variant of the virus has seen figures falling far slower than expected in recent weeks.

“The numbers have not gone down in a fashion that we would hope based on lockdown going back to December 26th,” he said.

“This is a different virus than we had last year so it is going to be even more challenging to get those numbers down and keep those numbers down.”

He said it is essential that any reopening does not put the country on a path to a fourth lockdown.

“This new virus is even more infectious and it is not people misbehaving and people making huge mistakes that are causing them to catch COVID,” he said.

“It is tiny mistakes. This virus must be even more infectious so I think we need to make sure we have all of our ducks in a row in the community in each of the settings we are planning to open up.

“Otherwise, I think the virus will continue to transmit and we’ll end up back in lockdown again.”

Living with COVID-19

The Government’s new ‘Living With COVID-19’ plan is now expected to go before Cabinet next Tuesday.

NPHET will offer advice to the Cabinet sub-committee on Thursday evening before the basis of the plan is agreed.

It is expected to include details on what levels of restrictions can be eased once a certain number of vaccinations are reached.