AS the Stormont Executive met to once again consider how to respond to the deepening second wave of the coronavirus crisis, the latest Department of Health figures ought to have focused minds.
A further 12 deaths related to Covid-19 were reported yesterday, with 487 new positive cases recorded.
Hospital occupancy was last night running at 100 per cent, meaning there is no head-room in a system already at breaking point.
Bed occupancy tells only part of the story; behind those statistics are an army of exhausted and overstretched health and social care workers, already weary from months of working with patients, Covid and otherwise, in a system operating under the constraints imposed by the virus.
In a sobering interview with this newspaper yesterday, virologist Dr Gerald Barry from University College Dublin said that if the Republic was experiencing similar levels of Covid, "they would shut the whole place down".
Clearly, any relaxation in restrictions in the north is untenable. With the R number climbing again, any general increase in human interaction will inevitably lead to the virus spreading more vigorously.
Indeed, on that basis, many will question the wisdom of allowing close-contact businesses and cafes to open from today.
That was passed by the Executive last week, along with a commitment that the rest of the hospitality trade could reopen from next Friday, at the conclusion of one of the most unedifying episodes in this era of DUP and Sinn Féin-dominated government.
Central to that farrago was resistance from the DUP to any proposal that the 'circuit breaker' restrictions should be extended, as proposed by health minister Robin Swann and recommended by Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride and Chief Scientific Adviser Professor Ian Young.
Indeed, so staunch was the DUP's opposition to any extension that not only did it twice deploy its Executive veto but in the days that followed, prominent figures wasted no opportunity to lambast Mr Swann and, in a slight of Trumpian proportions, even accused him of trying to destroy the economy.
After this nonsensical wrecking ball approach, the DUP yesterday performed a belated U-turn on the issue, signalling that it now understood why continued restrictions were appropriate.
The volte-face is welcome if it means the party is now prepared to take on board medical and scientific advice.
Yet it is a further example of the damaging inconsistency that has weakened the Executive's credibility and handling of the pandemic.
