The Irish Medical Organisation says GP surgeries, hospitals and ICU units are under "extraordinary pressure" from the high levels of Covid-19.
It says the recent rise in cases will mean fewer beds are available to treat non-Covid cases and limit the ability to tackle waiting lists.
There are 486 patients in hospital with the virus as of last night, including 75 in intensive care.
RCSI Senior Lecturer, Eoghan De Barra, says covid patients are taking up a lot of room in ICU.
"Well I think the numbers yesterday show a slight decline, so we had been heading towards 100 but it has stabilised now in the high 70s.
"We'll see week to week how those numbers go, but that represents about 20% of the ICU capacity in the country for a single disease.
"That's significant when we don't have huge numbers of ICU beds to start out with."
