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Northern Ireland recorded its highest daily total of new Covid-19 cases on Friday before the introduction of new restrictions aimed at limiting the spread of the virus.
According to the Northern Health Department, 1,299 people tested positive for the virus in the 24 hours through Friday. These included 315 new cases in Belfast and 258 in Derry and Strabane.
Two more coronavirus-related deaths were reported, bringing the number of deaths recorded by the department to 608.
Northern Ireland pubs, restaurants and cafes close from 6pm on Fridays for four weeks. The midterm vacation for schools has been extended to two weeks, closing schools until November 2.
The leaders of the five Northern Executive parties (DUP, Sinn Féin, SDLP, Ulster Unionists and the Alliance) issued a joint statement on Friday night calling on everyone in Northern Ireland to respect the restrictions and follow the guidelines. public health.
“We have four weeks to turn this around and we call on everyone to support this effort to fight Covid-19 and save lives,” they said.
This followed a surprise intervention on Friday by Northern Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots of the DUP, who said he had “serious reservations” about the new restrictions and claimed that his party had been overridden at an executive meeting earlier this week. .
“We are a minority in the Executive, we declare our case, but it is very evident that all the other parties were prepared to accept this and, therefore, that is the result,” he told the BBC Talkback program.
Debilitating behavior
This was rejected by other Executive parties, and Ulster Unionist leader Steve Aiken accused Poots of undermining the public health message “at a time when the Executive is making the most important decisions he will ever make in his life.” . .
He said the restrictions had been brought to the Executive as a document of the Prime Ministers and Deputy Prime Ministers, agreed at a meeting of the Executive where the DUP could have used a veto, and were brought to the Assembly by the Prime Minister, the leader of the DUP Arlene. Foment.
“If Edwin Poots feels so strongly about opposing now previously unanimous executive decisions that his party passed, then he should do the honorable thing and consider his position as executive minister,” Aiken said.
The Minister of Justice and leader of the Alliance Party, Naomi Long, told the BBC that the regulations had been agreed by the entire Executive.
“No one voted against those regulations, no one opposed what we were doing, and as uncomfortable as those decisions are, I think we must still be willing to make them, but more than that, we must be willing to work together to defend them. [and] to encourage people to comply with those decisions, ”he said.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood called on Ms. Foster to “control” Mr. Poots “immediately before he does any more damage to public health messages.”
The restrictions, he said, were “uncomfortable for everyone, but turning on fellow executives in public is incredible under the current circumstances.”
Sports link
Mr. Poots claimed in the same interview that the North’s medical director, Dr. Michael McBride, had told him privately that the areas where the virus had spread were “highly identifiable” and this was related to sports and sports. post-game celebrations.
“There is certainly a problem surrounding the sport,” Poots said. “I know of an event where people went to a bar after winning a particular cup, they passed the cup around the bar full of drink and most of them really caught Covid.”
When asked if he was referring to GAA, Mr. Poots said that “I would let others do it, I am not messing with an organization, but there are certainly those who have behaved very poorly during the summer months that have contributed to aggravating this problem ”.
When challenged by the presenter, William Crawley, that “a lot of people will join the dots” and feel “that you are criticizing the GAA community today,” Mr. Poots responded that “I was not labeling a particular group of people, but if people feel that the cap fits them, that is their thing ”.
“There has been a significant spread that has taken place and has taken place in particular areas and a lot of people are wondering why this is so,” he said, adding that it was “for people to draw their own conclusions.” .
Separately, seven coronavirus-related deaths occurred in the north in the week ending October 9, according to figures released Friday by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra).
It brings the total number of deaths recorded by Nisra to 915, more than 300 more than the 587 recorded by the Northern Department of Health in the same period.
Nisra’s figures are higher than those recorded in the department’s published daily statistics, which focus primarily on hospital deaths and include only people who tested positive for Covid-19.
Nisra includes all deaths where the coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate, and the person may or may not have tested positive for the virus.
According to Nisra, the deaths of 437 nursing home residents were related to the coronavirus as of October 9, and 81 of those deaths occurred in the hospital.
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