No clues to explain BT60 Covid spike but residents ‘will heed advice”.

From 5pm on Friday, people living in the BT60 postcode area will not be permitted to visit other people in their home – with a small number of exceptions.

A second stipulation is that no more than six people, from two households, will be allowed to gather in a private garden.

Keady and Markethill fall within the restricted area but the postcode method of determining its boundaries means that only half of Armagh city is affected.

Announcing that BT60 was being added to the list of districts facing restrictions, Health Minister Robin Swann said: “I informed Executive colleagues that the postcode BT60 is now significantly above the previously agreed threshold of 80 positive cases per 100,000 for imposing localised restrictions, and all cases at this time appear due to household or community transmission.”

Asked what he suspected had caused a sharp rise, Newry and Armagh MLA William Humphrey said: “I really don’t know”.

The DUP representative said he hadn’t spoken to anyone who had a credible theory on what was behind the spike, but said no one was questioning the need to abide by the official advice.

“The guidelines are there for a reason and we have to take on board what the experts are telling us. I don’t think any of us wants to see a another major spike and we must do all that we can to ensure that doesn’t happen,” he said.

Armagh city GP Frances O’Hagan told the BBC there has been a significant increase in the number of calls to the surgery.

“People have symptoms that could be Covid, or they could be winter colds and flus, and asthmatics getting their usual flare-ups at this time of the year. The challenge is to find the patients who have Covid...and to get them treated appropriately,” she said. Ms O’Hagan added: “Anxiety is rising among GPs in general because of the really rapid rise in the last couple of weeks of people with symptoms, much early in the year than we would expect.

“About a month ago we would have had around 100 people on the list to be phoned back..but we have noticed in the last week that the numbers have gone way up over 100 and we are looking at anything between about 120 and 150.”