Fm drakeford says joint uk approach is needed to lift the lockdown
A DROP in coronavirus-related hospital admissions means Wales could look forward “cautiously and carefully” to lifting lockdown restrictions, the First Minister has said.
But as the nation enters its second three-week period of strict measures to tackle the pandemic, Mark Drakeford stressed the need for a joint approach with England, Scotland and Northern Ireland in planning a “coordinated” easing on restrictions.
The First Minister yesterday revealed the Welsh Government had started developing a series of “tests” to help decide on an end to the lockdown, as Wales saw a drop in the number of new Covid-19 deaths for a second successive day.
Public Health Wales announced 11 new deaths of people who tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total of confirmed hospital deaths to 506.
The number of confirmed cases in Wales reached 6,645, a rise of 244.
Mr Drakeford told a press conference in Cardiff: “We are able to look forward cautiously and carefully to the future, to what Wales and the wider world will look like when the pandemic is over.
“The next three weeks are weeks that we are determined to use to plan ahead, to work with governments across the UK to prepare for any easing of the lockdown in a co-ordinated way.”
Mr Drakeford said all four UK nations needed to agree on “common and objective measures” early in the coming three weeks, including a series of tests being developed by the Welsh Government to help decide on how and when it is safe to begin easing the lockdown.
He said it was likely new Covid-19 outbreaks would happen across the UK after measures were eventually lifted, and that public health surveillance measures needed to be put in place to help identify and respond to them quickly.
When asked if he thought the UK nations would agree to come out of lockdown at the same time, Mr Drakeford said they would be “guided by the science and by the data in three weeks’ time”.
He said: “There may still be some things at the margins that we will do differently in different parts of the UK, but a UK way of doing things remains I think a strength.”
Mr Drakeford said making different decisions based on geography was “fraught with other difficulties” such as enforcement and public understanding.
But he said if evidence and advice from medical experts suggested Wales “needed to do things differently” from other nations, then “of course that is what we would do”.
Mr Drakeford said April 7 saw the highest number of new admissions for coronavirus patients in Welsh hospitals, 196, but that the number had dropped ever since, with as few as 105 such admissions on Thursday.
In terms of critical care, the highest figure – 161 patients – was recorded on April 9 but this has since “stabilised”, he said.
The First Minister denied that care homes had been treated unfairly with the distribution of personal protective equipment compared with hospitals following concerns about supplies, saying 40% of stock released by the government went to the care sector.
His comments came as a leading physician warned Britian will face “further waves” of Covid-19 and will probably have the highest death rate in Europe because the UK Government was “too slow” to act.
Professor Anthony Costello, of University College London’s Institute for Global Health, told a committee of MPs that the “harsh reality” is that “we were too slow with a number of things” and deaths could reach up to 40,000.
His comments came as the Department of Health said a total of 14,576 patients have died in UK hospitals after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Thursday, up by 847 from the day before.
Prof Costello said: “If we’re going to suppress the chain of transmission of this virus in the next stage we all hope that the national lockdown and social distancing will bring about a large suppression of the epidemic so far – but we’re going to face further waves.”
“And so we need to make sure that we have a system in place that cannot
just do a certain number of tests in the laboratory, but has a system at district and community level.”
Prof Costello, giving evidence to the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, said we “should not have any blame at this stage” but that “we can make sure in the second wave we’re not too slow”.
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Matt Hancock responded to criticism of the testing regime in England while also admitting he would “love to be able to wave a magic wand” to increase supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE).
In other developments across the UK:
■ Chancellor Rishi Sunak extended the Government’s furlough scheme by another month, until the end of June; ■ London Mayor Sadiq Khan urged the Government to change its advice to the public on wearing face masks to combat the spread of the virus;
■ Downing Street suggested summer holidays should not be booked yet as there is no certainty of when the lockdown will be lifted and travel can resume; and
■ Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she would deviate from the UK Government’s lockdown measures if her advisers told her it was in the best interests of her country.
Prof Costello also suggested offering incentives to 10% of the population to stay socially isolated in order to get the economy going again.
“We have to get the economy going and if it means locking down 10% of our population, even giving them incentives to stay in quarantine and with digital apps to help monitor their symptoms and give them support, that’s the way to really keep this going until we get a vaccine and safe herd immunity.”
Meanwhile, the hunt for a coronavirus vaccine has been given a boost by the launch of a government taskforce.
Led by chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, and deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan van Tam, it will support efforts to rapidly develop a vaccine as soon as possible.
As well as providing industry and research institutions with the resources and support, the group will review regulations to allow quick and safe vaccine trials.
It will also scale up manufacturing, so that when a vaccine becomes available, it can be produced quickly and in mass quantities.
Twenty-one new research projects combating coronavirus will receive UK Government funding from a £14m investment.
This follows the Government’s £250m pledge to develop a vaccine.
Representatives from Government, academia and industry will form the taskforce, including Government life sciences champion Sir John Bell, as well as AstraZeneca, and the Wellcome Trust.
Elsewhere, Downing Street said it was “wrong” of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to suggest the UK Government is not being more forthcoming about an exit strategy because Boris Johnson is absent.
Dominic Raab, who is deputising for the Prime Minister, spoke to Mr Johnson on Thursday, Number 10 confirmed. The PM is said to be “continuing his recovery at Chequers” and “not doing Government work”.