⁍ Ireland is set to reject a surprise recommendation by its health chiefs to go into lockdown.

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⁍ The National Public Health Emergency Team called for a leap to the highest level of coronavirus curbs.

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⁍ The cabinet will instead meet at 1630 GMT to discuss moving the whole country to Level 3.

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– Ireland’s Cabinet is set to reject a recommendation by its health chiefs to go into lockdown mode over an outbreak of coronavirus, reports Reuters. The move would have been Europe’s first major second wave national lockdown, but government sources say the Cabinet will instead propose a tightening of the current COVID-19 restrictions. Ireland reported the highest number of daily new infections since late April on Saturday, its 14-day cumulative case total of 104 per 100,000 people is only the 14th highest infection rate among 31 European countries monitored by the European Center for Disease Control. However, one of the health officials who advised a lockdown said Ireland’s limited hospital capacity meant it could run out of intensive care beds by the start of November if the current trajectory of COVID-19 cases continued. Under Level 5, people would have been asked to stay at home, except to exercise within 5 km, with only essential retailers allowed to stay open—similar to the seven-week lockdown that was among the longest imposed in Europe earlier this year. As they shifted to Level 3 over the past two weeks, all indoor restaurant dining and non-essential travel to other counties was banned in Dublin and the northwestern region of Donegal. Those tighter local restrictions have kept the unemployment rate just below 15%, although the large multinational sector and exports in less impacted sectors have shielded the economy from the worst of the crisis.