Police to lead Covid-19 passport enforcement – Naomi Long

Police will visit licensed premises to make sure they comply with Covid-19 passport rules, Northern Ireland’s justice minister has said.

Naomi Long said police will be “leading enforcement”.

Regulations are now legally enforceable and venues who breach them could face fines of up to £10,000.

Customers must show either proof of vaccination, a negative test or recent recovery from Covid to enter licensed premises and entertainment venues.

Ministers voted for mandatory checks last month, despite Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) opposition.

Entrance checks were introduced without enforcement on 29 November but the two-week grace period has now ended.

It comes as 10 cases of the Omicron Covid-19 variant were detected in Northern Ireland.

• Q&A: How do I get a Covid-19 passport in NI?
• What are the rules as NI’s Covid numbers surge?

Speaking to BBC NI’s Good Morning Ulster programme, Mrs Long, the leader of the Alliance Party, said the introduction of Covid certification checks was “not about trying to police our way out of a crisis” but to encourage people to take Covid seriously.

“There will be proactive policing with visits to licensed premises just to ensure the right measures are being taken,” she said.

“But the focus of this will be to support those proprietors who are trying to do their best. It’s really where people are clearly not trying to comply with the advice.”

She said further questions about enforcement would be “a matter for the chief constable”.

Last week Ms Long said police would take enforcement action against people who abused staff over Covid restrictions.

IMAGE SOURCE,PACEMAKER

Image caption,

Police will be visiting licensed premises to make sure staff and customers comply with Covid-19 passport rules

Mark Lindsay, chair of the Police Federation, said officers understood enforcement was “part of the job”.

“On some occasions it will be totally appropriate for police to be involved in enforcement,” he said.

“But there is a little bit of resentment as to why once again everything is being thrown at the police to deal with and not being seen as a wider issue”.

Image caption,

A crowd gathered outside Stormont on Monday in protest against Covid passports

More than 200 protesters gathered at Stormont to express opposition to the vaccine certificates.

Ahead of an assembly debate on the issue later, a series of speakers urged assembly members (MLAs) not to support the scheme.

The debate is taking place despite the scheme already being in force.

The DUP MLA Paul Frew accepted a petition from the protesters and briefly addressed the crowd.

“We will not stop fighting until certification is removed,” he said.

Earlier, DUP MLA Paul Givan, the first minister of Northern Ireland, said evidence certification would stop the spread of Covid was lacking and such schemes were “hardening” some people’s resistance to getting vaccinated.

But Mrs Long said there was evidence that vaccine passports did help to stop the virus spreading.

‘Do anything we can’

Declan Jordan, general manager of Rosie Joe’s bar in Londonderry, told BBC Radio Foyle they had already had to turn away big groups who were unvaccinated.

“If this is what they are telling us to do to keep our business open, we will do anything we can to do it,” he said.

Owner of Belfast’s Blank and Shed restaurants Christina Taylor said the grace period had “got them into the swing of things.”

“We have a responsibility towards our guests to keep them safe,” she added.

IMAGE SOURCE,GOV.UK

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The Gov.uk website stated there were “no more home tests available”

On Monday, the Gov.uk website, from where free NHS lateral flow tests can be ordered, said it had temporarily run out of the kits.

A message on the site apologised to those trying to order the test kits, and urged them to “try again later”.

It follows a change in rules for those identified as close contacts of a positive Covid case in England, which requires more lateral flow testing.

The Department of Health said there was sufficient stock of lateral flow tests in Northern Ireland to supply local collect sites, which include chemists.

‘Shouting no’

Health Minister Robin Swann has urged Stormont opponents of Covid passports to spell out their alternatives telling them “simply shouting no whilst failing to come forward with any genuine alternatives is not a credible position”.

In a letter to assembly members, he urged them to vote for the scheme and appealed for a “respectful” debate on the issue.

“Certification is certainly not a panacea and will need to be complemented by widespread adherence to public health advice,” he said.

There are several ways in which customers can prove their Covid-19 status:

• By downloading the CovidCertNI app on a smart phone, which shows proof of double vaccination
• By showing a paper vaccination card along with photo ID, such as a driver’s licence
• By showing proof of a negative lateral flow test (reported to the NHS within the past 48 hours) along with photo ID
• By showing proof of a positive PCR test result within the last 30-180 days, along with photo ID

Full details of the rules for businesses have been published on the Tourism NI website.

Which venues will ask to see proof?

The rules apply for access to:

• Nightclubs

• Licensed hospitality premises, including bring your own alcohol venues

• Cinemas, theatres and conference halls

• Indoor events with 500 or more attendees with some or all of the audience not normally seated

• Outdoor events with 4,000 or more attendees with some or all of the audience not normally seated

• Events where more than 10,000 people will be present regardless of whether they are seated

Covid passports are already being used in other parts of the UK and in the Republic of Ireland.

The Scottish government’s vaccine passport scheme came into effect in October and, from last week, their system was updated to include lateral flow tests results.

In Wales, NHS Covid passes have been required to enter nightclubs and large events since 11 October and last month the rules were extended to cinemas, theatres and concert halls.

People in England will soon need to show their Covid status to get into nightclubs and other large venues, subject to approval from MPs.

The Irish government made proof of Covid-19 immunity a requirement for entry into hospitality venues since the sector reopened in July.

The certification scheme has been credited with high vaccine uptake in the Republic of Ireland.

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Madagascar food crisis: How a woman helped save her village from starvation

Loharano’s effortless grace belies the hard work that she is doing to stave off the tragedy that is unfolding in parts of her region of Madagascar.

A prolonged drought in the deep south of the island has left 1.3 million people struggling to find food and 28,000 facing starvation. Some have called it the world’s first famine caused by climate change, though this has been disputed.

But Loharano’s village, Tsimanananda, where she is a community leader, has been spared the worst.

It is a tough 45-minute drive from Ambovombe, the regional capital of Androy, one of the regions hardest hit by the sharp drop in rainfall in recent years.

The 4×4 vehicle can barely find a grip on the sandy roads. The view through the dusty windscreen reveals a desert-like dune landscape, stripped of trees and exposed to harsh winds.

It is hard to imagine anything growing here. But Tsimanananda stands out in the landscape.

‘My four children starved to death one by one’

Loharano’s smile lights up the space around her. She is short and gentle – not the first person you would pick out as the leader in her neighbourhood.

But she quickly invites me into her compound, making me feel at home.

“We suffered a lot from hunger. We planted but it failed every time,” the 43-year-old says, reflecting on a previous drought that started in 2013. But with the help of a local charity, the Agro-ecological Centre of the South (CTAS), this time things are very different.

Shortly after I arrive, Loharano leads a short class under the shade of a tree.

Armed with a poster illustrating farming techniques, she talks to her neighbours, and her husband Mandilimana, about drought-resistant crops and techniques to revitalise the soil.

‘We have breakfast, lunch and dinner’

Over the past seven years, CTAS has helped introduce grains like millet and sorghum and local legume varieties, which grow well in the sandy conditions and improve the soil’s fertility.

The villagers were also taught how to plant natural windbreaks to help protect the crops from the ravages of the elements.

“Now, we have breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Loharano says proudly as she shows off her plot of land where she and Mandilimana have grown an impressive range of crops.

On one end there are rows of millet, then beans, peas and sweet potatoes.

“We eat the husk from the ground millet with sugar and this is the favourite food of the children, their bellies are always full of millet.”

CTAS has replicated this work in 14 other villages in the south of Madagascar helping some 10,000 households, the charity says.

But the small organisation cannot reach everyone and there is clearly enormous need.

Back in the regional capital, Ambovombe, is a sight reminiscent of a war zone.

In a small dusty field, dozens of families have erected makeshift tents – a patchwork of torn mosquito nets, rice sacks and plastic sheets.

But these people, around 400, have fled hunger not conflict.

Unlike Loharano, they were not able to grow any food and had to sell their farms and cattle just to survive.

Climate change controversy

However it is more than just possessions that people have lost.

Mahosoa, who lives here with one of his wives and 12 children, tells me four of his youngest children died at the start of the drought three years ago.

“They died of hunger in the village. They died one by one, day by day. We didn’t eat for one week. Nothing to eat, nothing to drink.”

IMAGE SOURCE,SIRA THIERIJ/BBC

Image caption,

The residents of the makeshift camp in Ambovombe fled their homes fearing starvation

Mahosoa tells me some of his children go out to beg in the town so they can buy food or water.

Promises of aid from the government have not materialised for them, he says.

The government has distributed food aid in the affected area and has announced dozens of long-term infrastructure projects that could transform the area’s prospects.

Nevertheless, President Andry Rajoelina has been criticised for failing to respond quickly enough to the crisis as the impact of the successive years of drought became more obvious.

Some locals put this down to the historical marginalisation of the region.

“During the war against the French colonialist army, the Antandroy [people from the Androy region] were able to fight against the French colonisers, they were able to use guerrilla tactics,” university lecturer Dr Tsimihole Tovondrafale says.

Because of this, he says the French were not interested in developing the region.

“They didn’t think about how to make roads, dig wells for example, and that’s still the politics of Madagascar since independence up to now.”

Many political commentators blame what they see as the government’s slowness to react for exacerbating the hunger crisis in the south, but Madagascar’s environment minister sees things very differently.

Dr Baomiavotse Vahinala Raharinirina says that the famine is “climactic in its origin”. This chimes with the view of the World Food Programme, which says that the crisis is being driven by climate change.

The recent influential World Weather Attribution report on the drought in Madagascar, which included work from Dr Rondro Barimalala, a Malagasy climate scientist, disputed this.

Researchers found that though the recent rains have been poor and the probability of future droughts may be on the rise, the change in rainfall cannot be attributed to human impact on the climate.

Regardless of the exact cause of the lack of rain, there is no doubt that hundreds of thousands of people will be living with its impact for years to come.

Through her work to improve her village, Loharano is happy her community has avoided the disaster many are facing right now.

But it hurts her to see many more cannot be helped.

“I feel sad for them because they could die of hunger. One day, somebody had nothing and I asked her why.

“She said that they hadn’t eaten since the day before. So I told her to take some of my peas and feed her kids.”

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