Border counties in the Republic could be moved to Level 4 restrictions if Northern Ireland introduces a lockdown advised by its chief medical officer amid soaring Covid-19 case numbers in the region.
Sources have said there have been discussions in Dublin about a rapid move to Level 4 for these counties in a bid to limit cross Border infections, with particular concern about the current figures in Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, according to the Irish Times.
There has been disagreement over a lockdown in the North as a senior Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP has questioned the need for region-wide restrictions.
Jeffrey Donaldson’s comments come amid reports that Northern Ireland’s chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride has advocated a six-week lockdown to halt spiralling infection rates.
DUP leader Arlene Foster attended a COBRA meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the North’s Health Minister and Deputy First Minister today in order to discuss the best way forward for the region as a further three deaths and 877 new cases of Covid-19 were reported.
Some 6,161 new positive cases of the virus have been detected in the region in the last seven days, with 140 patients currently in hospital and 22 in intensive care as a result of the virus.
Northern Ireland has recorded more cases than the Republic in the last week despite its smaller population, with the current surge seeing a further 1,066 new cases of the virus recorded in the region yesterday.
“A six-week full lockdown, back to where we were last March, would I think take us way, way ahead of anywhere else,” the DUP’s Westminster leader Jeffrey Donaldson told BBC Radio Ulster’s Nolan Show.
Mr Donaldson said the North’s chief medical officer’s lockdown proposal was far more extensive than what was in place or being considered elsewhere in the UK or in the Republic.
“And the rate across Northern Ireland, I would need to be convinced that such measures at the moment are appropriate for all of Northern Ireland.
“I’d be wanting to know why we’re abandoning the policy of focusing in on the areas where the infection rates are highest," he said.
Those decisions are far from straight forward and certainty cannot be characterised, as some people try to, that it’s health versus wealth.
Mr Donaldson said Dr McBride needed to produce the data that justified the imposition of a six-week lockdown.
“What we’re asking the chief medical officer, why do we need a full lockdown in those areas where the infection rate is much lower so as to combat the spread of infection in places like Derry and Strabane?” he said. “I think that’s a fair question.”
Speaking earlier, Ms Foster said a lockdown in the North was not inevitable: “We will have big decisions to take this week.
“Those decisions are far from straight forward and certainty cannot be characterised, as some people try to, that it’s health versus wealth, because of course at a very basic level, if you lose your job and you end up in poverty, then of course that too has health implications.”
It comes as yesterday Sinn Féin said hospitals in the Republic should be drawing up plans to receive patients from Northern Ireland, if the current surge of Covid-19 cases the region is experiencing continues and its hospital come under too much pressure.
Sinn Féin’s health spokesman David Cullinane said that only an all-Ireland effort would work to stop the virus.
