Northern Ireland has announced they are extending the lockdown for three weeks paving the way for the rest of the UK.
First Minister Arlene Foster said the regulations will remain in place until 9 May.
"We review that every three weeks and we will now review that again based on the data that we have as to what should happen in the future," she said.
The rest of the UK is expected to announce the same extension on Thursday after the SAGE committee met on Tuesday.
Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said now was the time to "dig in, to stay strong and save lives".
The first minister said the executive had taken its decision after a lengthy meeting on Wednesday.
Ms Foster added "When this all started the process was about containing, then it was about delaying, then it was about mitigation and the next phase of that is recovery. We're not at that stage yet but what we will be doing in the executive will be planning for the recovery and of course it's right that we need to plan for the recovery."
The announcement came as six more people diagnosed with Covid-19 in Northern Ireland died in hospital in the past 24 hours.
It brings the number of hospital deaths in NI to 140.
Since Tuesday, there have been 121 new confirmed cases - the total number of confirmed cases in Northern Ireland is 2,088, with 13,672 individuals tested.
