Coronavirus: Local restrictions on BT60 begin this evening

Local restrictions will be imposed from Friday evening on people living in the BT60 postcode, which covers parts of County Armagh.

From 17:00 BST residents will not be allowed to visit other people inside their homes or have visitors in - with a few exceptions.

The health minister announced the plan after Thursday's executive meeting.

Meanwhile SDLP MLA Daniel McCrossan revealed he has tested positive for Covid-19.

The West Tyrone representative said he became ill on Wednesday and received a positive test result on Friday.

He said he had closed his constituency office as a precaution and will self-isolate.

"While in isolation, I'll continue to work for the people of West Tyrone to the best of my ability and to spread awareness about the impact of this virus," he said.

Announcing the new restrictions, Robin Swann said the BT60 postcode was "significantly above" the threshold for imposing localised restrictions.

He said all the cases in the area appeared to be due to household or community transmission.

BT60 covers parts of County Armagh, which includes part of Armagh city, the towns of Keady and Markethill, stretching from the Middletown and Tynan on the Monaghan and Tyrone border to Mount Norris and Whitecross, near Newry.

As well as the restrictions on indoor visits, no more than six people from two households will be allowed to gather in a private garden.

Those restrictions already apply to the greater Belfast area, Ballymena, BT29, BT28 and BT43.

Seven coronavirus-linked deaths were registered in Northern Ireland last week, official figures released on Friday showed.

That is four more than the previous week, according to the latest statistics bulletin issued by the NI Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra).

It said the virus had featured on the death certificates of 887 people in total by 11 September.

The provisional number of all deaths between 4 September and 11 September was 296 - 62 more than in the previous week (234) and 20 more than the five-year average (276).

That five-year death rate is used to compare the number of weekly deaths that would normally be recorded at this time of year.

The Department of Health counts deaths after a positive test result has been received.

On Friday, it reported two new coronavirus-linked deaths.

That means the death toll from the virus in Northern Ireland recorded by the department stands at 575.

The latest figures on the department's dashboard show 163 new confirmed positive cases of the virus in the past 24 hours, bringing that total to 8,943.

Ulster Unionist Party councillor Sam Nicholson represents and lives in Armagh city.

Speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Ulster he said he supported the move to put some parts of the city under restrictions and not others, but admitted the new rules may be "confusing" for some people.

"It's going to be very difficult - I have a brother who lives in BT61.

"This virus does not recognise borders and boundaries, but this decision is based on the positive cases within the BT60 area in the past couple of weeks.

"The executive had to decide how it was going to create these areas to create restrictions and postcodes was the choice."

He urged everyone to "follow the public health advice and help stop the spread of the virus".

Speaking about Lisburn, Alliance Party councillor Sorcha Eastwood said "it makes no sense" to split the city in half with restrictions.

Half of the city, under the postcode BT28, are subject to tighter regulations, while those living in the BT27 area of the city are not.

"The risk will not dissipate when you move from one half to the city to the other," said Ms Eastwood.

"If the point of localised restrictions is to try and slow the spread, this is a strange approach, given people travel across Lisburn for work and other reasons on a daily basis."

The councillor urged the health minister to add BT27 to the list of areas subject to more stringent measures.

The local measures come after the executive made the decision that drink-only pubs can reopen from Wednesday 23 September - two days later than the indicative reopening date.

The date was moved back to allow regulations around enforcement of the hospitality industry to be drawn up.

About 600 pubs in Northern Ireland that do not serve food were waiting for permission to open.

The mandatory requirements for pubs to open will include: