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Six new coronavirus fatalities as Belfast health expert warns deaths ‘will increase significantly’

The total number of deaths now stands at 124

A total of six new Covid-19-related deaths have been recorded in Northern Ireland.

And there have been a further 76 confirmed cases over the past 24 hours.

The total number of deaths now stands at 124.

Cumulatively, there has now been a total of 1,882 cases recorded in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile infectious disease expert from the Belfast Trust, Dr Claire Donnelly, says the number of deaths “will increase and will increase significantly”.

“We are certainly seeing that the curve is flattening but it hasn’t peaked yet,” she told Good Morning Ulster.

“Unfortunately deaths still occur even after you see new cases reducing.

“Even when the peak starts to reduce you still see an increase in deaths.”

She added: “It goes up very steeply but you can see with the introduction of social distancing there’s always a delay, because people don’t present immediately with the illness.

“Before social distancing the number of cases would double every two or three days but after social distancing that moves up to six days and seven days and eight days and that is when you see the benefit.

“What we’ve seen in Europe is the peaks are very broad and slow at the top and slow to reduce.

“In China, you saw a very steep peak and a very sharp reduction.

“They introduced very extreme social distancing but they also isolated people from their families, so they took people who were well and maybe didn’t need hospital care but they were isolating them so they didn’t infect other people and their families.”

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