COVID-19 is "increasing its foothold in our communities", the chief medical officer has warned.

According to Dr Tony Holohan, there has been a "steep rise" in positivity rates recorded via community testing, with a seven-day average of 9.2% compared to 5.2% on December 18.

"This indicates that the virus is increasing its foothold in our communities and is just one more reason why we are strongly advising everyone to stay safely at home, to avoid transmitting or catching this virus as it continues to circulate widely," Dr Holohan commented.

He urged people to know the symptoms of the virus and to come forward for testing if displaying any of these.

"Do not delay in phoning your GP for advice. Self-isolate in your room if you have a cough, fever, shortness of breath or change in sense of taste/smell. If you are a household contact of a confirmed case, restrict your movements until your household member receives a negative test result.

"In addition to staying at home except for essential reasons, these important individual actions will help to stop the exponential spread of COVID-19 in our communities and in turn protect the most vulnerable, our healthcare system and those who work on the frontlines," Dr Holohan pointed out.

A further 765 cases of the virus, and one more death, were confirmed today. While this is lower than the numbers seen before December 26, Dr Holohan emphasised that this is due to a number of factors related to the time of year, such as lower rates of referrals and presentations for testing for several days over the Christmas period.

As a result, these figures are expected to increase again in the coming days.

"We look at many metrics when monitoring the disease severity of COVID-19. Today we are reporting that we have now exceeded the cumulative number of people hospitalised in this third wave than in the second.

"Hospitalisations have increased sharply in the last two days. This is a concerning trend which reflects the sharp increase in incidence we saw in the last 10 days," Dr Holohan said.

As of 2pm on Monday, there were 359 people in hospital with confirmed COVID, 30 of whom were in ICU. There had been 41 additional hospitalisations in the last 24 hours, with five additional admissions to ICU.

Ireland is currently at level 5 of the Government's COVID-19 plan. For more on this, click here.