Tracing for people with Covid and no symptoms

A RANGE of contact tracing measures designed to f i nd asymptomatic Covid-19 cases will be rolled out in Northern Ireland this week, the Health Minister has said.

Testing of healthcare workers will begin to enable early identification and speedy isolation to reduce the risk of onward transmission.

Checking of students who do not display symptoms at Queen’s University is also scheduled to start this week using lateral flow devices, with plans for the wider population of students.

Robin Swann said: “The learning arising from these... will help us better understand how these new asymptomatic testing technologies can be implemented and extended more widely.”

Digital solutions to help warn people earlier are also being developed.

From November 16, contact tracing has been enhanced.

Mr Swann added: “This is a significant development to our approach to combating the virus and will ensure a strong focus on identifying the likely source of the cause of infection and identifying potential common exposure which can lead to clusters.”

He told the Assembly he wanted to ensure the system was wellplaced to deal with the pandemic in the coming months.

This will involve the development of a hybrid model, including digital solutions to deliver early messages to contacts and cases while allowing staff to deal with more complex cases, outbreaks and clusters.

Meanwhile, the Irish Government said it expects to roll out Covid-19 vaccinations in the coming months.

Restrictions to suppress the virus are to be eased from today on a phased basis.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said the Government is loosening restrictions for the month of December to allow “some sense of normality to return” in the build-up to Christmas.

“It doesn’t mean that we don’t continue to live very much aware of the presence of Covid-19 and its threat of spread, so we encourage people to continue to do all the basic things,” he added.

“We all expect that we will have vaccines in the first quarter of next year.”

As restrictions begin to ease across the state, the focus will be on testing and contact tracing, Mr Coveney added. “It’s to make sure that if there are new clusters emerging we respond and stamp them out as quickly as we can.”