Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Lock down before it’s too late, urges medic
A TOP doctor has called on Stormont ministers to lock Northern Ireland down.
Dr Tom Black, Northern Ireland chair of the British Medical Association, said the most recent measures were “too little too late”.
And he added that any notion of bringing back hospitality is “just not what we should be doing right now”.
Dr Black said: “I think the Executive needs to go to a full lockdown, the same as what Boris Johnson is doing in London and the same as what the Republic of Ireland is doing.
“Close non-essential retail, keep hospitality closed, close places of worship – that’s what we need to do.
“The economy is something we will have to work hard at when we are through the second wave.
“The numbers are still high in the community.
“Every day the number of inpatients increases, every day intensive care is virtually at capacity and the number of Covid outbreaks in care homes is gradually increasing too.
“It’s not how you cope with Covid. It’s how you provide a health service for cancer patients, emergencies etc and have Covid at the same time.
“For the Executive to be thinking about easing restrictions when England is going to a full lockdown and the Republic of Ireland has been in full lockdown for a couple of weeks just baffles me.
“Why would they be thinking about going the wrong direction at the wrong time?
“The restrictions were too mild to begin with. They did too little too late and now they are looking at the wrong numbers.
“The sequence on Covid is, really busy in general practice, really busy in ED, really busy in Covid wards, then really busy in ICU and then deaths.”
The Derry GP added it “takes about a week or two between each step”.
He said: “Two, three weeks ago GPS were just swamped and ED last week.
“This week, it’s the wards and if you look at the numbers, it has gone up over 400 [on Tuesday].
“Next week it will be intensive care and the week after it will be deaths.”
Dr Black was speaking on a day when the Department of Health reported six more people had died in Northern Ireland after contracting Covid-19, bringing the overall death toll to 730.
A further 570 positive cases have been recorded taking the total to 40,179.
To think about easing restrictions baffles me DR TOM BLACK YESTERDAY