LIVE BLOG Coronavirus NI: McDonald’s closes for deep clean after worker tests positive | 34 people test positive in last 24 hours | 294 test positive in last 7 days | See where the cases have been diagnosed | new tighter restrictions to be introduced tomorrow | ‘It is possible we could have full lockdown if rates are not decreased’

That means 294 people have now tested positive in the last 7 days.

There have been no further deaths - leaving the NI death toll at 559.

The latest report from the Department of Health recveals that the majority of new cases of coronavirus confirmed within the last 24 hours were in the Mid and East Antrim council area.

There have been 80 cases in the past seven days in the area, including 10 cases since yesterday.

This is followed by Belfast council area where seven new cases have been confirmed, bringing the weekly total to 72.

The remainder of cases confirmed in the past 24 hours were in Causeway Coast and Glens (5), Lisburn and Castlereagh (5), Antrim and Newtownabbey (4) and Ards and North Down (3).

The news comes after it was revealed that a McDonald’s restaurant has been forced to close for a deep clean after a worker tested positive for COVID-19.

The Coleraine restaurant, at Riverside Retail Park closed on Wednesday morning and it is not yet known when it will reopen.

A spokesperson for McDonald’s said: “One employee from McDonald’s Coleraine restaurant has tested positive for COVID-19.

“This morning as a precautionary measure, the restaurant temporarily closed and will be deep cleaned by an external cleaning company this evening.

“We have a number of safety measures in place to help keep our people safe, including Perspex screens, temperature checks at the start of each shift, maintaining a 2 metre distance from others as much as possible, face coverings, regular hand washing and the use of hand sanitiser”.

The news came after Health Minister Robin Swann said he would not rule out the possibility of another complete lockdown.

“It is possible we could have full lockdown if rates are not decreased”.

Minister Swann added: “I sincerely hope we never get to that position again, where we were at start of this year.

“It is too valuable a prize to lose”.

Health Minister Robin Swann added “we have to step in now” to deal with the recent rise in Covid-19 cases in Northern Ireland.

Mr Swann says he will be making a number of recommendations to executive colleagues when they meet tomorrow which will help “arrest that spread of this virus”.

These could include “possibly reducing the number of people who can meet together in a household”, he told The Nolan Show.

Indoor and outdoor gatherings as well as sporting events are all “in the mix”, he added, as “proportionate steps that we can take easily”.

“I don’t want to make any presumptions as to exactly where we go; the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser always make those recommendations based on their medical and their expert advice as to where they see the spread of Covid in Northern Ireland,” he continued.

The minister says “this is now in all our hands” and “we can get back there quickly” in terms of reducing the infection rate.

Later Chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said coronavirus does not “spread itself, we do” and “we need to see the same, if not greater commitment as before”.

“We are all tired, we all want this to be over, it is a long, long, way from over,” he told the Nolan Show.

“I support the minister (Robin Swann) in his comments that next week following the executive, we are likely to see some changes in terms of the restrictions that we have taken for granted over the last number of weeks and months.”

He added that if the infection rate rises to 80 cases per 100,000 “we are in a very severe situation”.

“The executive need to intervene before that”.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride says we are set to enter flu season and the combination of flu and Covid-19 is a problem as it increases the pressure on the health service.

“It makes it very difficult for our contact tracing service - test, trace, protect - to distinguish one from the other,” he also told the Nolan Show.

“And it adds pressure on our GP practices and our hospitals.

“As we move into the winter, we have continued over the last weeks and months to very rapidly scale up our testing capacity.

“We are also very rapidly developing, at a UK-national level, rapid point-of- care tests which will allow us to distinguish - hopefully within a short time frame - between Covid-19 and flu.”

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