Business owners were hopeful of a return to normality on the day when all remaining Covid-19 legal restrictions lift in Northern Ireland.
While the law is not formally due to change until 5pm on Tuesday, the announcement of the relaxations on Monday evening has already prompted changes to business practices and public behaviour in the North.
The requirement for people to wear face coverings in settings such as shops and on public transport is being removed while Covid certificates will no longer be needed to gain entry to nightclubs and large indoor unseated events.
Businesses will also no longer be required to undertake coronavirus-linked risk assessments or collect track and trace information from customers.
While the curbs are being removed from law, they are remaining as guidance.
Self-isolation guidance upon infection is not changing and neither is the Executive’s work from home where possible message.
Aaron Chism, the co-owner of Belfast city centre clothes shop Fuzz Vintage, said his hope was for brighter days ahead.
He started the business in the middle of the pandemic in October 2020.
“Hopefully there’s going to be more people knocking about Belfast and they’ll feel more comfortable to go into shops and we’ll get more customers,” he told the PA news agency.
“It’s been quiet with lockdowns and stuff and then having to be closed. We opened in the middle of things before a second lockdown – it was a harsh time to open a shop but hopefully it’s going back to normal now.”
Stormont Finance Minister Conor Murphy said he wanted to get to a position where there was no need for any Covid-19 guidance.
“We look forward to a time that we can remove all restrictions, and all guidance becomes a thing of the past,” he said on Tuesday.
“But the pandemic is still going on, there are still people dying, there’s still people contracting the virus. And so there has to be a degree of caution in relation to that.”
Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann confirmed on Monday that all legal restrictions in the region would be replaced by guidance from February 15th.
Regulations removing the curbs from law have been laid before the Stormont Assembly and will formally take effect at 5pm on Tuesday.
Mr Swann, who tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday, was advised by the attorney general last week on the potential legal complications of him replacing Covid regulations with guidance amid the current political crisis in the region.
Northern Ireland has no functioning Executive after the DUP removed Paul Givan as first minister, as part of its protest against Brexit’s Northern Ireland Protocol.
Ulster Unionist minister Mr Swann was concerned about acting without the wider endorsement of an Executive, and he wrote to other ministers asking for their input.
The other four Executive parties supported Mr Swann in moving unilaterally to lift the restrictions.
