‘Undoubtedly’ more cases of the Omicron variant in NI

Yesterday it emerged that the first cases of the variant, three in total, were discovered.

Speaking to BBC News NI, Prof Sir Michael McBride said we will see a “significant increase” in case numbers before Christmas.

Sir Michael said it was too early to say how Omicron cases may impact on Covid restrictions.

“It’s important at this point that we don’t get ahead of ourselves,” he said.

And the chief medical officer said the closure of schools would be “the very, very last thing we look at”.

“I think our children have suffered quite significantly throughout this pandemic,” he said.

“I think our teachers have done a fantastic job, I think parents have done a fantastic job supporting them throughout remote learning - but it is not the same as face-to-face learning.”

However, Sir Michael said there was “concern” about how the highly transmissible variant may impact on the health service.

“If you have a large number of people who are infected at one point in time, even if a small number of the large number infected end up in hospital, that’s still significant pressure on our health service.

“I think we need to be very careful, I think we need to be guarded, and I think we need to just watch this space until we get more data.”

Sir Michael said early data “is concerning”, but added: “We would be premature to get too far ahead of ourselves and certainly wrong to panic.”

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