Acute hospitals across Ireland have been instructured to prepare for a fourth wave of Covid-19.
A surge in patients is expected in the next week to 10 days, and hospitals are being told to report on how many additional intensive care beds can be created.
The emergency measures could mean the cancellation of hundreds of surgeries, except for cancer and time-critical cases.
In a letter from Chief executive of the HSE Paul Reid, hospital managers were told that if necessary they should curtail “all other activity to facilitate redeployment of staff to critical care areas”.
Mr Reid instructed that other strategies should be taken to prevent people coming into hospitals and to maxmise all available capacity.
Another 4,650 new cases of the virus were reported yesterday. There were 643 Covid-19 patients in hospital, of whom 118 were in intensive care.