Hospitals are being told to cancel non-urgent care for the next two weeks with healthcare staff shortages affecting many units.
The HSE has also asked for staff to be redeployed to help relieve the pressure from Covid-19.
884 patients are in hospital with the virus - an increase of 70 per cent over the last week.
HSE chief executive Paul Reid says around six thousand staff are now off work due to Covid:
"In a very short time frame, I mean, some hospitals went from 60 staff out sick with covid to about 240 - in a two or three day time frame."
"So all of that is putting the health care system under significant pressure."
"So the next 14 days, in terms of elective care, if its non urgent, we will scale it down."
"We will also utilise private capacity at the greatest extent we possibly can."
