THERE was a record number of positive Covid-19 cases in Northern Ireland over the last 24 hours – and the public have been told to prepare for a second lockdown.
There have been 934 positive cases and one further death confirmed by the Department of Health today.
Local restrictions were announced in the Derry City and Strabane District Council area yesterday.
The seven-day infection rate is 139.4 per 100,000 people in Northern Ireland. in the Derry City and Strabane area, that rate stands at 422.8.
Dr Michael McBride, Northern Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer told the BBC: “I do believe that we need to plan and prepare and look at options around a so-called circuit breaker.
“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.
“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.”
Since the outbreak, there have been 582 deaths and 12,886 positive cases.
There are 65 patients in Northern Ireland hospitals being treated for Covid-19 with nine of those in intensive care settings.
Tags: