Swimming pools, spas and community centres to open in Northern Ireland from tomorrow
Swimming pools, spas and community centres are to be reopened from tomorrow in Northern Ireland, Stormont’s ministers announced this evening.
In the latest moves to ease lockdown in the region, fans will also be allowed to attend sports venues so long as those running contests “can control access and ensure adherence to social distancing”.
One such event could be the Irish Cup final next Friday, when it is understood the football authorities will allow up to 2,000 fans into Windsor Park, which has a capacity to hold up 18,000 spectators.
The supporters allowed into the international stadium will be subject to strict social distancing at the final.
The Northern Ireland executive has also ruled that the number of people allowed to gather in a private house can rise to 10.
Saunas and steam rooms are also permitted to open, while funfairs can also resume operating from tomorrow.
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Liz Truss has ruled out signposting when she expects the UK government to secure a trade deal with the US, fuelling fears that hopes of reaching an agreement ahead of the presidential election in November have been abandoned.
The international trade secretary said it was “dangerous to make a prediction” on when an agreement with Washington might be achieved, stressing that Downing Street would not “sacrifice a good deal for speed”. Reports suggested earlier this week that Downing Street had given up on agreeing a trade deal with the US before the country goes to the polls in November.
Appearing before a Lords committee this afternoon, Truss said:
We are commencing round three of the talks next week and we are making good progress. But we are very clear that we are not going to sacrifice a good deal for speed. We have expert negotiators who are tabling UK-specific texts across the whole agreement to ensure that it reflects our interests.
We are not just going to accept photocopies of the US-Mexico-Canada agreement. We are also not going to budge on our red lines: the NHS remains off the table, our food standards must not be undermined and British farming must benefit from a deal.
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Wearing face masks in shops to be made compulsory in Northern Ireland from 20 August
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Boris Johnson’s 24-hour test result target still being missed, DHSC figures show
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Test-and-trace system still not meeting 80% target, figures show
The numbers of people testing positive for coronavirus reached by contact tracers and asked for details of those they have recently met are edging upwards, but are still short of the 80% the scientists recommend to keep the epidemic in England under control.
The NHS Confederation said it was concerned that the target was not being hit, risking a second wave in the winter as more virus circulates indoors. Dr Layla McCay, a director at the confederation, said:
I’m glad to see improvements in the proportion of people with coronavirus whose close contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate, but we cannot ignore the fact that the benchmark for effectiveness, as recommended by the government’s independent scientific advisers, is still not being met.
The Guardian on Wednesday revealed that the numbers reached in more socio-economically deprived communities were lagging a long way below the national figure. In partially locked-down Leicester, 65% of people testing positive were reached and asked to provide their contacts. In Luton, with the sixth highest infection rate in England, the rate was only 47%.
“We are hearing that people in the hardest hit areas are not being reached,” said McCay.
This is too important not to get right. Without a test and trace system that is consistently robust across the whole country and effective at reaching people where the disease is particularly prevalent in a timely manner, we risk a second peak that could seriously endanger public health and put the NHS in the path of a wave of infections that could overwhelm it.
The latest statistics out today (pdf), for the week from 9 to 15 July, show that 79.7% of people testing positive were reached by the contact tracers, slightly up on the previous week. The numbers of the close contacts of “non-complex cases”, which means individuals not in outbreak settings, hospitals or care homes, who were reached were lower, however, at just over 60%. In complex cases, the tracing teams do much better – 98.5%.
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The global poultry production giant Moy Park has confirmed that a “very small number of employees” have tested positive for coronavirus at a plant in Northern Ireland.
The company said the workers at its Ballymena factory were self-isolating on full pay.
Moy Park’s operation in the Country Antrim town employs 1,400 workers including agency staff. Northern Ireland’s health minister, Robin Swann, said that the region’s Public Health Agency was cooperating with Moy Park over the outbreak.
Swann stressed that an outbreak of Covid-19 was defined as two or more people being infected.
“We have always said we will expect outbreaks and clusters as we start to ease restrictions, but what we really need is for people to interact with test, track and tracing so we can manage them,” Swann added.
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