STORMONT ministers have been warned there may be 11,000 cases a day of the highly spreadable Covid-19 Omicron variant in the North of Ireland by the end of December.
A “significant intervention” could be needed after Christmas to deal with such a scenario, said health officials.
Scenarios about Covid patient numbers were shown to ministers on Thursday but no further restrictions were announced.
First Minister Paul Givan said “more clarity” was needed on the link between the variant and hospitalisations.
The Executive is next expected to meet on Wednesday.
The Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill said there could be a “clearer picture” then about the variant and any action that may be required.
A document given to ministers on Thursday stated that action may be needed for a “reasonable chance” of keeping hospital inpatient numbers below 1,000.
It outlined that a “significant intervention” would be needed “immediately after Christmas” to help the health service.
The document also explained that it is likely a peak in coronavirus case numbers will occur in the third week of January, with hospital admissions peaking in late January or February.
The paper adds: “The extent of the hospital peak will depend on the severity of Omicron illness but without further measures is likely to exceed numbers observed earlier in the epidemic, potentially by several fold.”
Speaking after the Executive meeting, Mr Givan said the North of Ireland was behind the curve of Omicron cases being experienced elsewhere in the UK.
He also said he had been “encouraged” by the level of uptake of the Covid-19 booster jabs.
“We don’t panic and we continue to put into practice our public health.
“We need be careful over the Christmas period and we get as much information as we can which will help inform the executive at our next meeting next week,” he said.
Mr Givan said he wanted flexibility from the UK Treasury for the devolved regions to access Coronavirus funding depending on their individual circumstances.
He said: “If we’re not getting any more funding then we have to look at our existing resources,” he said.
Further data will emerge from experience in England and Scotland in the next fortnight, where community transmission of the variant is more advanced.
The R or reproduction rate in England is now between three and five which means someone with the Omicron variant is spreading it to between three and five people.
Over 88,000 cases were recorded across the four nations in the past 24 hours with Omicron now the dominant variant of the disese in London.
The paper received by Stomrontministers also said hospital admissions in the North of Ireland declined modestly in the past week but hospital occupancy remained at a “relatively high” level.
Intensive care units occupancy and deaths declined modestly in the past week, it added.
It warned that Omicron will become dominant around the final week of December, potentially with “very large numbers of cases”.
The chief medical officer has said he is more concerned than at any other time in the pandemic.
Six more Coronavirus-related deaths and another 2,237 cases of the virus were recorded in the North of Ireland on Thursday.
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