‘Stick to the rules’ warning as spike looms at end of month

A spike in hospital admissions is not expected to peak until the final two weeks of January, Professor Ian Young added, after Stormont ministers significantly tightened social mixing restrictions.

He attributed the rise mainly to increased socialising before fresh lockdown measures rather than the virus mutation prevalent in southern England.

He said he was less certain that existing vaccines would work against a South African variant but it was not yet widely present in the UK.

Prof Young said: “The existing mitigations need to be adhered to particularly carefully to reduce transmission of the virus.”

The reproductive number of the virus – or R value – is approaching 1.8 and hospitals are at full capacity.

Belfast’s Nightingale hospital is being expanded.

Prof Young added: “It is likely that hospital admissions and numbers of patients requiring hospital treatment will continue to rise.”

He defended the decision to increase the time between the first and second doses of vaccine.

Prof Young said: “Having reviewed the evidence myself, I am content that the decision that has been made is in the best interests of our population as a whole.”

Covid-19 will probably always be with us and repeated rounds of vaccination are likely to be needed, the senior official advising ministers on the science and modelling of the disease said.

Prof Young told Stormont’s health committee that at the moment, he is not concerned about resistance to the vaccine from the known mutations.

He said “structural” changes to the virus are of more concern as they are more likely to develop resistance to vaccination.

There is more uncertainty about the South African variant as there are greater levels of structural changes within that, he added.