Mr. Paul Reid:

As I said earlier, my view is that restrictions and lockdowns impacting on the economy and on society hurts us all and hurts the health service. Obviously, various actions had to be taken. They have made a difference for us so they must be taken at the appropriate time. My view is that it will become hard to distinguish within counties, particularly some of the bigger ones with urban centres. It is hard to distinguish but, ultimately, that is just a personal view.

On the positivity rate, the Deputy is correct. It is increasing and it is a cause for concern for us, particularly as one can track it into certain parts of the community where it is increasing. From a public health perspective, the R-nought number, which the Deputy will be familiar with, is one that is tracked globally and that has increased. As Professor Philip Nolan said recently, it is somewhere between 1.3 and 1.7 so, in essence, if it is at 1.5, then every ten people infected are infecting another 15 others. That is a concern, but we would track the positivity rate. Thankfully, by comparison with many other European countries, we have not seen the impact of the positive-----