Walk-in Covid-19 swabbing centres are set to be deployed more widely as part of the HSE's testing strategy. Chief Executive Paul Reid said that "very significant benefits" are already being seen from a small number of temporary pop-up sites that were set up in various locations over the past 10 days.
He said he is very pleased in particular to see young people presenting for testing and that overall positivity rates from these swabbing centres is about 3%.
Mr Reid said this type of testing of asymptomatic people in communities where the virus is spreading at a high level will be part of the HSE's testing strategy from now on. "The way we see it working is we will move them into areas where we see high transmission levels in the community.