Northern Ireland reports double record of daily COVID-19 cases

Almost 1,000 people in the North have tested positive for coronavirus in the last 24 hours in what is the largest daily increase since the pandemic began.

The daily statistics bulletin released by the Northern Ireland Department of Health (DoH) on Friday afternoon showed 934 new cases of the virus have been identified in the last 24 hours.

The figure is more than double the previous highest number of daily cases, which was set only two days ago.

One more coronavirus-related death was reported, bringing the total recorded by the Department to 582.

The total number of positive cases of Covid-19 which have been identified now stands at 12,886. In the last seven days, 2,623 cases have been identified, which includes 1,147 cases among people aged 20-39.

On Thursday the North’s Executive agreed wide-ranging restrictions to tackle the dramatic rise in cases in the Derry City and Strabane District Council area
The measures, which will take legal force from Monday, include strict limits to the hospitality industry and an instruction to avoid travel into and out of the area. Many businesses have already closed voluntarily.

The number of cases identified in Derry and Strabane in the last seven days has risen to 637, and the case rate per 100,000 is now 423.

There are also concerns over the increasing number of infections in Belfast, Newry Mourne and Down and Mid-Ulster.

In Newry, Mourne and Down the rate per 100,000 has risen to 214, while it is 161.5 in Belfast and 155 in Mid-Ulster.

The North’s chief medical officer, Dr Michael McBride, told the BBC further restrictions are likely in the weeks ahead if case numbers continue to rise, and did not rule out a short, intensive period of lockdown.

“I do believe that we need to plan and prepare and look at options around a so-called circuit breaker,” he said.
For us to get through the next number of months we may well need to apply further restrictions, perhaps for a short period of a couple of weeks … and then if the virus starts to increase again we may need to reapply some of those wider further restrictions.

“It is crucially important that we keep on top of this virus and we deploy all of the tools in our toolbox.

“There is no magic bullet here, no hammer that you can take out that will suppress this virus; it is about the combination of interventions, restrictions that reduce mixing between people.

“There may come a point if we see very significant transmission at a Northern Ireland level, that we need to move away from local restrictions to wider restrictions at a Northern Ireland level, and that may include a circuit breaker,” he said.