Covid: Hospitality return is 'act of vandalism', says doctor

Re-opening the hospitality industry next week would be "an act of careless vandalism", the chair of NI's British Medical Association (BMA) has said.

Dr Tom Black said the return of the sector "at this stage" of the pandemic "would be appalling".

However, a joint statement issued by four business groups has urged the executive to "stop doing things to us and instead work with us".

The first minister has said the current restrictions will end on 13 November.

The measures were to last four weeks.

Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said they would be "reviewed" at the end of the period.

The Department of Health reported on Tuesday that six more people had died in Northern Ireland after contracting Covid-19.

It brings its death toll, based on a positive test result being recorded, to 730.

A further 570 positive cases have been recorded bringing the Department of Health's total to 40,179.

Dr Black, a GP in Londonderry, said opening pubs and restaurants would send the message to the public that the pandemic in Northern Ireland is "not so bad".

"We are in the worst pandemic we'll ever see, in a second wave that is much worse than the first wave, with wards full, intensive care full and huge numbers of outbreaks in care homes," he told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme.

"It would inevitably result in our health service being overwhelmed, it would inevitably result in increased pain, suffering and death for our community, can I emphasise this any more strongly?

"We can't have hospitality opening during a huge second wave in a pandemic, end of discussion.

"We need leadership from our executive, we've had dithering. We need clear decisions, we need firm action," Dr Black continued.

"They had a very good first wave, they're having a very bad second wave."

A spokesperson for the NI Executive said it had "taken steps to curb the spread of coronavirus through a four-week period of significant interventions".

"The impacts of these measures on the course of the epidemic, including ongoing progress with the R rate, are being monitored closely, and ministers will consider developments when the executive meets again this week as planned," they added.

There are few arguments where health will not rule the day and speaking on Good Morning Ulster Dr Tom Black made his case ferociously.

Dr Black is seeing daily the pressures that Covid-19 is placing on the health system, especially in hospitals.

Lives are being placed at risk and that's not just patients' lives.

His verbal attack on those even considering reopening will sit uneasily with those who are in a position to decide if bars and restaurants should be allowed to open their doors again in the next couple of weeks.

He said the system is hanging by a thread. The problem is that it was hanging precariously by the same thread even before the pandemic, and now it's even more frayed around the edges.

School and hospitality are the two big levers in trying to bring the rate of transmission down.

While an Executive paper published a few weeks ago suggested that keeping schools open might be riskier - it's hard to argue that children being in school, being educated and in some cases fed can outdo the public being able to go out for a meal and a drink.

From the start, the pandemic has meant trade offs. Now is no different. Listening to Dr Black, it's obvious who health experts believe should lose out in this instance.

However, four business groups have issued a joint statement urging the executive to "take the necessary steps to protect both lives and livelihoods".

The statement - jointly issued by the Belfast Chamber, Hospitality Ulster, Manufacturing NI and Retail NI - said the groups were keen to discuss what efforts the executive was making to develop a "different strategy to deal with the coronavirus pandemic".

"We believe there is much to be gained by engaging with business in the development of an alternative approach given that our firms are impacted by restrictions," said the statement.

"It is absolutely imperative that progress on finding and implementing a new strategy is made immediately."

The statement added "time is of the essence" and said the businesses want to develop a strategy that "suppresses the spread of the virus and keeps people in employment" ahead of Christmas.

Roger Pollen from the Federation of Small Businesses said the "broad-brush term of saying we must close hospitality, end of discussion, is not wise".

Businesses and medical professionals are not "on different sides", he added.

"We have to look at how we continue to keep the economy operating safely to achieve the objective that Tom is after and we are after.

"Unless there's a vaccine on the horizon we need to find ways of managing this situation better."