It's expected more than 100,000 people will be self-isolating for Christmas.
The country's seven day positivity rate continues to rise with almost 1 in 4 swabs tested yesterday detecting Covid-19.
9,192 swabs tested yesterday found the presence of the virus yesterday. This is the highest in a day since the pandemic began.
New rules mean close contacts without a booster have to restrict movements for 10 days, dropping to five for people who have been boosted.
Psychotherapist Stella O’Malley has this advice for those in that situation:
"I think it's very important that they let people know whether it's neighbours or services.
"On some level let people know even if it's the GP and the GP can alert services so that people know, I'm alone, I have Covid and I need, on some level, the kindness of strangers."
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn is urging people to have a fun but safe Christmas:
"Unfortunately the virus will take every opportunity it can to spread and we know what happened this time last year when that happened and we really are very keen that people would avoid that this year."
There are 98 patients with Covid-19 in ICU. This is the first time it's fallen below 100 since November 12th.
Across hospitals, there's 390 patients with the virus, which is the lowest total since October 10th.
The overall figure is down 12 per cent on last Thursday.
