Belfast A&E doctor appeals to public: Stick to Covid rules to stop NHS being overwhelmed

John Maxwell was speaking as hospitals in Northern Ireland reached 103% occupancy amid a second surge of Covid-19 cases.

He described staff working tirelessly through “challenging and difficult circumstances”.

“I can’t remember when it was as tough as this before,” he told a media briefing today.

“All the staff are working at their absolute max and unquestionably they are tirelessly trying to deliver the best care they possibly can in what are really challenging and difficult circumstances ... in the middle of this second surge of the pandemic.

“We are very concerned that this could be one of the worst winters that the NHS in Northern Ireland is going to experience unless we act to change and to do something different to get control of the situation.

“Please support the public health message, you have to absolutely abide by what we are trying to do otherwise you will have an NHS that is overwhelmed.

“We will not get through this unless we work together.”

Dr Maxwell also warned that the virus can affect younger age groups as badly as the elderly.

“You cannot take this lightly, I do understand that on the frontline we do see older people getting it but young people get this too, you would be mad to ignore the risks and absolutely we see people from a younger age group getting into real difficulty as well,” he said.

Health Minister Robin Swann described health workers as exhausted and in need of support.

“My plea to the public is to rally round our health and care staff, we can and must thank and praise them but they do need more from us so please do everything you can to stop this virus from spreading further,” he said.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride said the seven-day rolling average of new cases has plateaued and begun to fall.

But he warned that the decline is slow and the trajectory at this stage “remains uncertain”.

“It is crucially important that we get the reproductive rate of the virus below one, as far below one as we possibly can and keep it there for as long as we possibly can,” he said.

Dr McBride also said that any sense that Northern Ireland will return to normality at the end of the current four-week circuit-break of additional restrictions is “misplaced”.

“We are now in the middle of winter, this virus will continue to plague us throughout the next number of months, until such times as we have a vaccine, and it is crucially important that we learn to live with it and we will need to interact very, very differently as a society until such times as that is the case,” he said.

The Executive is set to meet on Thursday to review the impact of the restrictions and is set to discuss the reopening of schools on Monday.