No ‘Freedom Day’ likely for Wales
WALES will not be following
England in scrapping all its lockdown measures on July 19, it has been confirmed.
On Monday the UK Government announced that it will lift all restrictions from that date in England in what many have dubbed “Freedom Day”.
In a fortnight’s time all legal limits on social contact are set to be removed in England, and there will be no cap on the number of people who can meet up both inside and outside the home.
In addition, the remaining businesses that are still closed, including nightclubs, are set to reopen.
But Wales’ Health Minister Eluned Morgan said Wales would not move to a “political deadline that has been set out artificially” by the UK Government for England.
“We are still in a very difficult situation because the case numbers are increasing exponentially still in Wales. There remains a vulnerability for those people who haven’t been vaccinated,” she said.
“However, we also have to understand that there are other harms that we need to consider and, in particular, the mental health situation, the economic situation, the social situations that people find themselves in.
“We’ll be considering those in the next few days. We need to understand that we are going to learn to live with this illness, and we are going to have to adapt as a society to a situation where we will be exposed to an extent to this new variant and to coronavirus more generally.”
In Wales, the lifting of restrictions was put on pause for four weeks on June 17 to get as many people as possible vaccinated before the next review takes place on July 15.
Baroness Morgan said in “an ideal world” she would have liked the four nations to work together on a shared approach to the easing of lockdown.
“But if it’s not right for Wales, we won’t be doing it. However, we will be making those decisions as part of our next 21-day review, so you’ll have to wait until next Wednesday for more announcements.
“We will be following the data rather than the politics, and that is what we have continued to do throughout this pandemic.”
Baroness Morgan added that she couldn’t give any assurances that Wales would not be placed into a stricter lockdown again should new variants evade the effectiveness of the vaccine.
“I can’t make those kind of predictions, and I’m surprised the UK Government is able to make those predictions, but certainly in Wales we will not be giving those kind of assurances that there won’t be any lockdowns in future,” she added.