Coronavirus: Calls to stop people from UK hotspots visiting Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland should restrict the movement of travellers from other coronavirus hotspots in Great Britain in a bid to halt the country’s rate of transmission, health experts have said.

The nation has one of the highest seven-day rates in Europe, with 334 cases per 100,000 people, according to the latest government data.  

A total of 25,177 infections have been recorded across Northern Ireland - nearly half of which have been reported since the turn of the month. In the past week alone, 6,708 people have tested positive for Covid-19, with 213 patients currently in hospital being treated for the disease.

Stormont has subsequently unveiled a series of new restrictions - including the closure of pubs and schools for two weeks and one month respectively - that will seek to flatten Northern Ireland’s rising curve. But scientists have warned that such measures may not be enough.

After Wales announced this week that it would be preventing people from areas of the UK with high levels of coronavirus from entering the country, calls have been made for Northern Ireland to adopt a similar strategy.

Ivan Perry, a professor of public health at University College Cork, said “we have to be pragmatic in how we use borders” between Northern Ireland and its British neighbours, including the Republic of Ireland.

“They've done this in Australia, where it’s a federal system. States with high rates of transmission, people have not been allowed to move in and out,” he told The Independent.

“We have to be pragmatic in how we use borders. Leave aside the emotive and politicalise issues attached to these issues. The virus doesn't recognise borders clearly, and we should use borders pragmatically to defeat it."

Gabriel Scally, a visiting professor of public health at the University of Bristol and a member of the Independent Sage committee, said Wales had showed it was possible to impose coronavirus travel restrictions across Ireland and the rest of Britain.

"One of the interesting things is Wales banning travellers from regions of England,” he told The Independent.

“That's really interesting in a Northern Ireland context because politicians north and south have said you can’t stop people coming from Britain to Ireland because it's a free travel area. So that kind of clears that away. If Wales can do it, anywhere can do it.”

Wales’ new restrictions come into force from Friday, and immediately prevent travel from areas in England in tiers two and three, the central belt of Scotland, and the whole of Northern Ireland.

Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, said: "The number of cases across Wales is growing and our health service is coming under pressure.

"To keep Wales safe, the Welsh government is therefore amending the regulations to make it clear that people living in areas with a high-prevalence of coronavirus in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland would not be able to travel to parts of Wales where there is a low prevalence.”

Helen Dolk, a professor of epidemiology at Ulster University, said that internal borders “are inevitable in Covid control” where regions differ in their Covid-19 rates, similarly pointing to the example of Australia where such measures have helped to tackle the spread of the virus.

She said the two governments in Ireland “need to work in tandem as much as possible” to preserve cross-border movement where appropriate and necessary. Fast testing at the border, she added, could allow people to travel freely throughout the different regions of Ireland and the UK.

“These border problems may well become less severe as diagnostic tests improve to allow fast and frequent testing, she told The Independent. “However, diagnostics cannot get round the need for the ‘heavy lifting’ of social distancing to reduce viral transmission.”

A DUP minister in the Northern Irish executive has meanwhile claimed that Stormont's chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride and chief scientific adviser Professor Ian Young have indicated that at least two more lockdowns will be required over the winter months.

Of the proposal, agriculture minister Edwin Poots said: “I think that's hugely damaging for the economy, for people's mental health and wellbeing and the consequences of it - probably tens of thousands of people on the dole and that's not good for the health of Northern Ireland.”

He also said that the two health experts had told  him privately what lay behind the surge in cases across Northern Ireland.

"I've asked the chief medical officer and the chief scientist the question and they've admitted to me privately what the problem is but they haven't said it publicly," he said.

Mr Poots singled out issues around sport and, in particular, post-match celebrations.