NI reaches another sad Covid-19 milestone
Date published:
Health Minister Robin Swann has emphasised that the threat of Covid-19 must never be underestimated.
The Health Minister was speaking after Northern Ireland reached another sad milestone in the pandemic with the Department of Health’s dashboard recording 2,000 Covid-related deaths.
“We must not forget that behind every death will be a family left in grief.
“I want to extend my sincere condolences to every family mourning the loss of a loved one.”
The Minister said: “Sadly, we know this virus has the potential to take more lives so it remains as important as ever to be vigilant and follow all the public health advice.
“Today serves as another harsh reminder that we cannot be complacent.”
Minister Swann added: “While we are seeing good progress in the roll-out of our vaccination programme we must remain cautious and cannot be tempted to get ahead of ourselves. As I have said before, this is a complex and long-term undertaking and it will be some time before the vaccination programme is rolled out to the majority of the population."
Concluding, Minister Swann said: “I’m very aware of the sacrifices that the people of Northern Ireland have made over the course of the last year and the collective effort to make the current lockdown effective. We are now beginning to see the outworking of those sacrifices in a lowering of infection rates but again I must urge caution. We need to sustain this reduction in transmission to preserve life and support our health service.”
Notes to editors:
- For media enquiries please contact DoH Press Office by email: pressoffice@health-ni.gov.uk.
- Follow us on twitter @healthdpt.
- The Executive Information Service operates an out of hours service For Media Enquiries Only between 1800hrs and 0800hrs Monday to Friday and at weekends and public holidays. The duty press officer can be contacted on 028 9037 8110.