Coronavirus: Arlene Foster hints at what Northern Ireland may look like when the COVID-19 lockdown is lifted

Mrs. Foster made the comments at the Northern Ireland Executive daily Coronavirus briefing in Stormont on Friday afternoon.

Northern Ireland will be guided by both scientific data and the information gleaned from the way in which countries all over the world exit their own respective lockdowns.

“We are going to develop a recovery plan and the deputy First Minister and I will meet with the head of the civil service early next week to make progress on that,” she said.

“Change around the broader societal interventions the Executive has had to make is going to need to be very delicately handled, and our response will be a graduated one.

“Given this may be only the first wave of this pandemic and no vaccine is as yet readily available, we will be very much guided by science and other parts of the globe where they have relaxed their restrictions.”

Meanwhile, deputy First Minister, Michelle O'Neill said progress has been made on personal protective equipment (PPE).

“However we are still hearing stories of PPE not getting to the right people at the right time and we want to continue to hear those stories and we want to continue to work to rectify those situations,” she said.

“There has been progress insofar as testing has been scaled up, we still have a journey to go there also.”

Mrs O’Neill added: “We are not out of the woods, we are still in the middle of our surge and we are on a knife edge.

“Now is not the time to relax, now is not the time to stop doing all the things that we’ve been asked to do over the course of recent weeks, now is the time for us to keep working hard at making sure we are saving lives.

“At this moment in time, we have to stick very firmly to the measures we have in place. We will have difficult decisions to take down the line about when or whether or not to ease any of the social distancing restrictions but as we speak today there is no room for anyone to be relaxed or to be complacent.”

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