Progress in tacking Covid-19 has created enough room to allow for more lockdown relaxations in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill has said.
The deputy first minister was confident that at a meeting on Thursday the power sharing executive could agree a timetable for reopening more sections of society.
Arlene Foster, the first minister, has already expressed hope that opening dates for close-contact services, such as hairdressers and beauticians, and non-essential shops can be announced this week. The hospitality sector is also hopeful that it might get some good news on Thursday, particularly in respect of outdoor trading.
Northern Ireland took some gradual steps out of lockdowntoday. The remainder of post-primary students, years eight to 11, returned to school and a limited number of outdoor businesses, such as garden centres and car dealerships, reopened. The “stay at home” messaging has also been replaced with advice to “stay local”.
O’Neill told BBC Radio Ulster: “I wouldn’t want to pre-empt the executive decisions on Thursday, but I think it’s fair to say that we’re increasingly confident in our ability to be able to make more progress.
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“We have, over the weekend obviously, reached the one million vaccine mark, which was obviously very encouraging and gives us great hope that we’re making our way out of this pandemic.
“I think today is a good step forward in terms of our young people being back into our schools and a number of other areas obviously opening up.
“So I’m hopeful that by Thursday we’ll be able to announce dates for other things being able to open up because, for a combination of reasons, the factors look good where we have the headroom on which to be able to move.
“The vaccination programme being very strong, our ICU numbers coming down, the number of positive cases coming down - that all leads to a very encouraging situation, so I’d be hopeful that, with executive colleagues’ agreement, we’ll be able to announce dates.”
“I very much hope that we can give an indicative timeframe on Thursday because I think there are lots of people for business reasons, for wellbeing reasons, they want to see that timetable and I hope that we can do that on Thursday.”
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Other relaxations included an increae in the number of people who can meet outdoors in a garden, including children, from six to ten. Click-and-collect services for non-essential retail also resumed. Outdoor sports training is now allowed for recognised clubs, in groups of up to 15, provided all indoor facilities except lavatories remain closed. The number of people allowed to attend marriage and civil partnership ceremonies has also increased, at a level informed by a risk assessment for the venue.
At Sullivan Upper grammar school in Holywood, Co Down, there was excitement as pupils were reunited in the classrooms after months of remote learning. But they were returning to a school very different from pre-pandemic times, with pupils asked to wear face masks indoors and numerous hand sanitising stations in operation.
Ben Borland, a Year 8 pupil from Belfast, said that being in a classroom was much preferable to learning from home. “It’s been hard because the teachers have been posting stuff on Google Classroom and since there’s no teachers actually there with you it’s hard to kind of keep up and know what you’re doing properly, because there’s no one there to actually tell you how to do it,” he said.
“It’s good getting back to normality, so you can actually see people and actually be able to know what you’re doing properly in classes.”
Effie Lappin, another year 8 pupil, from Bangor, said that the latest lockdown was not as strange as the first last year, because she had got more used to it. “It was sort of a bit more normal than it was the first time, but it was definitely odd,” she said.