One more Covid19 related death in NI and dozens of new cases

By Q Radio News

The first Covid death in 11 days has been notified in Northern Ireland.

The Department of Health confirmed the death on Saturday.

No deaths with the virus had previously been notified by the department since May 18.

Another 68 positive cases were also notified on Saturday.

On Friday morning there were 28 Covid-positive patients in hospital, of whom two were in intensive care.

Northern Ireland recently emerged from a second lockdown which started in December following a spike in coronavirus cases.

The reopening of indoor hospitality and visitor attractions were among the most recent relaxations which came into effect on Monday.

Meanwhile, 1,695,321 jabs have been administered so far in the vaccine rollout.

The programme opened to those in the 18 to 24-year-old age bracket last week.

It comes as a professor warns COVID infections appear to be "growing exponentially" and urged the government not to repeat the mistake of acting too late to tackle the spread of the virus.

Sir Tim Gowers - whose argument against herd immunity helped trigger England's first lockdown last year - told Sky News that the recent increase in coronavirus cases "worries me".

"They seem to be multiplying by a certain fraction each day - in other words, growing exponentially," he said.

"We're still at a reasonably low base but, on the other hand, we know that there's a lag.

"Even if we were to take serious action and more social distancing action, that growth would continue for a while until the effect of that action kicked in."

Sir Tim, a world-leading mathematician at the University of Cambridge, was hailed by Dominic Cummings as "one of the smartest people on the planet" during his evidence to MPs this week.

Before England's first lockdown in March last year, the professor sent the prime minister's then-chief aide a five-page document warning of the need to "move urgently to extreme containment measures".

On Saturday, Sir Tim told Sky News that if it becomes clear that the UK's coronavirus reproduction number "is significantly bigger than 1 then we just have to act".