Coronavirus: 'Not enough achieved' to stop more restrictions

Lockdown restrictions in Northern Ireland are due to end on Friday, 13 November

Interventions to tackle Covid-19 "have not achieved enough" yet to ensure more restrictions are not required in NI, Sinn Féin's junior minister has said.

Restrictions on hospitality and close-contact services are due to end on Friday, 13 November.

Declan Kearney said the measures had helped but warned: "We're not out of the woods yet."

DUP junior minister Gordon Lyons said the executive wants mitigations in place.

He said this would allow hospitality to open more "safely than before".

'Strategic decisions'

The executive is due to meet on Thursday to discuss the latest Covid-19 modelling data, but it is thought a decision on whether to extend any of the restrictions may not happen until early next week.

On Wednesday, the Department of Health reported 10 more Covid-related deaths across Northern Ireland in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 740.

There were 679 confirmed new cases of the virus, with 418 people in hospital.

Speaking on a visit to a shop in Belfast on Wednesday with Mr Lyons, Mr Kearney said indications from the Department of Health were that the restrictions imposed on 16 October had "helped us stabilise" the rate of infection.

But he added: "So while this intervention is going to come to an end, we have to make strategic decisions about what more is required, tomorrow's meeting will focus very strongly on that.

"If we get that balance between societal partnership and compliance, then I'm confident in the coming period we will continue to suppress the spread of the virus.

"But at this point in time we have not achieved enough to say that by moving beyond this intervention, there is not more to do."

Sinn Féin's Declan Kearney has cautioned: "We're not out of the woods yet."

Mr Lyons's party, the DUP, have said the current restrictions must end next Friday.

On Wednesday, the chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) in NI, Dr Tom Black, said reopening hospitality would be an "act of vandalism" and called for Northern Ireland to implement a second lockdown.

But Mr Lyons said his focus was "on making sure the hospitality sector can open again".

"We want to make sure we protect livelihoods as well as lives," he added.

"What we need to do as an executive is find a way to ensure we mitigate any problems that arise from that."

Asked if the extension of the furlough scheme made it easier for the executive to consider keeping the sector closed until the end of November, Mr Lyons said: "We want to make sure businesses have the opportunity to open, they don't want handouts and we want to help them in the most safe and Covid-secure way possible."

Northern Ireland's chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride has said the R-number - or reproduction value - will not stay below one if both hospitality and schools are open.

Schools in Northern Ireland reopened on Monday and the executive has said its top priority is keeping children in classrooms.

In other coronavirus-related developments in Northern Ireland:

• Elective surgery has been cancelled at Craigavon Hospital as it expands its intensive care capacity, while NI's medical leaders have called for "breathing space" as services come under increasing pressure

• Learner drivers in Northern Ireland who had tests cancelled because of the pandemic will be given priority access to re-book an examination.

• Stormont's Finance Committee has seen heated exchanges over the controversial payments of small business grants to Sinn Féin offices

• Irish language organisations are to receive £1.2m in emergency funding from the Department of Communities (DfC)

• The R-rate of Covid-19 transmission in the Republic of Ireland has dropped below 1, according to the country's health minister