A six-week 'hard' lockdown will begin on December 26 as the Stormont executive attempts to relieve the intense pressure on our beleaguered hospitals and health and social care staff.
It will be the most stringent set of restrictions on our way of life since the coronavirus pandemic began in March.
Indeed, the first week of lockdown includes a curfew between 8pm and 6am daily.
The case for strong restrictions has been overwhelming for some time, and was emphasised this week by the images of patients being treated in ambulances because there were no beds available in the hospital.
Hospitals, running at over-capacity, are clearly at - if not already beyond - breaking point.
The virus has amplified the annual winter pressures to unbearable levels, with chief scientific adviser Professor Ian Young warning that there could have been as many as 4,000 Covid-19 patients requiring hospital treatment in January unless severe restrictions were imposed.
While personal responsibility lies at the heart of suppressing the virus, it is also an indictment of the executive that Northern Ireland now faces such tough measures.
The stop-start cycle of restrictions and 'circuit breakers' it has pursued throughout the autumn clearly hasn't worked.
All too often each new set of measures has been poorly communicated and difficult to understand, with the nadir reached in November when the DUP vetoed health minister Robin Swann's circuit breaker proposals.
Unfortunately many of the lessons around messaging that a mature government should have heeded have not been learned.
While chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride and Prof Young made themselves available to the media yesterday, only Mr Swann and deputy first minister Michelle O'Neill made statements on Thursday evening.
It would have been reasonable to expect first minister Arlene Foster to play a prominent role in helping to explain why the six-week lockdown is necessary, or for education minister Peter Weir to address the questions that pupils, their parents and teachers will have around issues such as exam preparation, the transfer test and school transport.
Nor is there clarity around what financial support measures will be in place for the businesses ordered to close.
The fine detail of the lockdown measures and regulations needs to be shared as soon as possible, but it is vital that when so much is being asked of the public that ministers are on hand to offer clear, consistent and comprehensive messages and explanations.
