Another lockdown ‘could kill off many businesses’ - Chief Executive of Belfast Chamber of Trade, Simon Hamilton - East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson adds further lockdown ‘should be avoided at all costs’

He said: “Whilst we all appreciate that the situation with the virus has taken a turn for the worse and that action is required, the Executive must equally consider the wider and longer-term impacts on society, our mental health, jobs and the economy of the choices before them.

“Until a vaccine is available, it is clear that whatever measures the Executive introduce, they won’t kill off the virus but the inadvertent effect of their decisions in coming days could be to kill off many, many businesses and lots and lots of jobs with them, affecting thousands upon thousands of families all across the region.

“The Executive faces some difficult decisions but surely they know that stopping and restarting large swathes of our economy again and again and expecting there to be no damage, no business closures, no job losses and no uncertain futures for many families is foolish.

Also emphasising the damage a further lockdown would cause on the economy, East Antrim DUP MP Sammy Wilson said: “Another lockdown with insufficient support and without a clear path out should be avoided at all costs.”

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Wilson added that any policy “that puts you back in the same position as you were six months ago, with all the damage caused in between, is not a good policy”.

“We damaged the economy with a lockdown back in March - it stayed until June, built up huge levels of public of debt and jeopardised businesses and now we are back talking the same language as we were in the beginning of March.”

Mr Wilson said his party would support any measures proven to be effective in limiting the spread of Covid-19.

“We have made our position public as far as what we believe the parameters ought to be,” said Mr Wilson.

“Where evidence is produced that a measure is needed because that is the source of the infection, that what is being proposed will be effective and has been shown to be effective, then we will of course support the measures.

“But where that’s not the case, we have a duty as public servants for not just the health part of the portfolio of government but for the economic and social part of the portfolio of government, to make decisions which are not knee jerk, not based on pressure from the media or vociferous groups or from lobbying or spinning of issues within certain departments.”

Earlier today three further deaths and another 877 positive cases of Covid-19 were reported by the Department of Health.

The latest deaths bring the toll in Northern Ireland to 591.

Some 6,161 new positive cases of the virus have been detected in the last seven days bringing the total number of cases in the region to 21,035.

There are currently 140 patients in hospitals with Covid-19, including 22 in intensive care.

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