Northern Ireland says ‘no headroom’ to lift COVID-19 restrictions now

Northern Ireland does not plan to soften restrictions designed to curb the spread of COVID-19 at this time due to the high infection rate, Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill said on Thursday.

“We have no headroom for change at this moment in time,” O’Neill told a press briefing, saying that the reproduction rate, or R0, of the disease in the British province was 0.8-0.9 compared to around 0.5 in both England and Ireland.