Stick with Covid social distancing ‘like your lives depend on it’

Another 220 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the last 24-hour reporting period as the Province’s rate of infection surges.

Senior medic Dr Michael McBride said: “I ask you not to give up.”

People are no longer allowed to visit inside other homes as Stormont reintroduces some restrictions seen earlier in the pandemic, and the next two weeks will be critical in deciding whether they need to go further, health chiefs say.

Ministers could potentially be dealing with 600 new infections a day within a month if they had not clamped down, modelling experts believe.

Dr McBride said the course of the virus was in people’s hands and how they acted as this winter approaches.

“Your life, and potentially the lives of others close to you, does depend on it,” he added.

Dr McBride also said there was now a “narrow window of opportunity” to prevent the further spread of the virus.

“We are at a fork in the road,” and “we don’t get a second chance” to take the right course, he said.

The number of diagnoses is predicted to double every 10 days in a major onslaught on the health service if nothing is done, Chief Scientific Advisor Professor Ian Young said.

New restrictions will limit hospital visitors to one once a week with certain exceptions.

It follows measures aimed at reducing mixing in private homes which experts blame for much of the rise in community transmission.

Health Minister Robin Swann said: “I do not want another lockdown, at the same time we have to keep all options on the table.

“The best way to avoid further restrictions on our lives is to follow the ones we have in place now.”

Dr McBride said the number of hospital admissions was increasing by 50% a week.

Dr Paul Johnston, an intensive care doctor at Antrim Area Hospital, said some medical staff in areas like intensive care had sought psychological support for the episodes they have witnessed while caring for patients.

He said: “Prevention seems better than a cure that does not currently exist.”

It was also revealed at Wednesday’s media briefing that Covid-19 has double the mortality rate of similar respiratory conditions.

There can be no mixing of households indoors, with some exemptions, while no more than six people from two households can meet in a garden.

Previously, the measures only applied to Belfast and the Ballymena area in Co Antrim.