Stormont’s Minister of Health has warned that further coronavirus restrictions may be necessary if pressures on Northern Ireland’s health service continue to mount.
Robin Swann said the Executive will do all it can to avoid imposing fresh measures and added that another lockdown would represent a "detrimental step" for the North.
Mr Swann stressed the importance of driving up vaccination rates as a way to prevent the reintroduction of restrictions over the winter period.
The Minister said the health service simply does not have enough staff to cope with the current pressures.
He said the pandemic has exacerbated problems caused by years of underinvestment in the system.
"I don't have enough nurses, I don't have enough doctors," he told BBC Radio Ulster. "Unfortunately, it's not about producing staff out of nowhere – we can't do that."
A further 995 cases of the virus and nine additional deaths related to it in the last 24 hours were reported by the North’s department of health on Wednesday.
Responding to criticism over a vaccine booster programme that is lagging behind the rest of the UK, Mr Swann acknowledged it had been “slow to start” but he said general practitioners and community pharmacies are now in a position to ramp up the rollout of the jabs.
His comments came as the North's Public Health Agency (PHA) confirmed that 125 cases of the Covid-19 Variant Under Investigation VUI-21OCT-01 also known as AY.4.2 and 'Delta plus', have been detected in Northern Ireland.
On the prospect of further restrictions being needed in Northern Ireland, Mr Swann said: “I hope we don’t get into a position where we have to go down the lengths of a further lockdown. I think we’ll be doing all that we can as an Executive collectively to make sure that we don’t get to that extreme level.
“Will we have to look at further restrictions? Possibly. But I’ll always, as I’ve always done, take that advice and guidance from our chief medical officer [Sir Michael McBride] and our chief scientific adviser [Prof Ian Young] in regards to where we are.”
He added: “If we have to go through into another lockdown, I think it will be a detrimental step that I wouldn’t want to recommend.”
Mr Swann has called in support from the UK’s Ministry of Defence on three occasions during the pandemic to bolster staffing numbers with medically trained military personnel.
He said a further request would be an option he will keep under review but he stressed that military assistance is a “time-limited resource” that is not constantly available. – PA