Two deaths and 1,299 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed in Northern Ireland

There have been another 1,299 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed in Northern Ireland in the last 24 hours.

In its latest update this afternoon, the Health Department said two other deaths have also been reported.

New restrictions were announced earlier this week for all six Northern Ireland counties amid an alarming spike in cases in recent weeks.

Last night, Prime Minister Arlene Foster said she respectfully disagrees with a leading medical body’s assessment that the new restrictions for Northern Ireland are “too small, too late”.

Arlene Foster was responding to a claim by the British Medical Association NI that only a complete lockdown could have prevented the healthcare service from falling off the edge of a Covid cliff.

She said: “I say that because I not only have to look at the health outcomes on these issues, but, of course, the economic outcomes, the social outcomes, the education of our youth … and therefore I think that that we presented It was an action plan that was combined to try to address all those problems, without taking a minute off the enormous challenge that we have in front of all of us in relation to Covid-19. “