Just one death for third day
WALES has recorded only one new death with lab-confirmed coronavirus for three days in a row, the latest figures from Public Health Wales (PHW) show.
Until recent days, the last time the number of deaths reported on a single day was so low was in mid-March before lockdown began.
PHW confirmed yesterday that the death toll reported to them since the outbreak began has now reached 1,478.
In addition, PHW said the number of lab-confirmed positive cases of coronavirus in Wales has increased by 71 to bring the total to 15,197.
There has been a huge spike in
He added: “The test will be whether there is significant seepage of coronavirus from the closed setting and into the wider community.
“You’ve got to be proportionate about these things, as I said. Decisions that are made to restrict people’s liberties should not be taken lightly. And they should be taken when they are necessary to protect the wider health of the public.
“If that’s the position we find ourselves in on Anglesey, then we will take actions alongside local players to do so.”
Mr Drakeford said Government ministers were working with the Joint Biosecurity Centre, which advises the UK Government on how to manage the virus, on what steps to take in the event of local outbreaks. cases in Anglesey over recent days following the outbreak at the 2 Sisters meat processing plant in Llangefni.
There were no new cases in Newport, Torfaen, Merthyr Tydfil, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Neath Port Talbot and Swansea.
Powys, Monmouthshire and Caerphilly all saw one. Bridgend and the Vale of Glamorgan both saw two cases while RCT and Cardiff had seven.
And despite testing capacity standing at 12,300 each day in Wales, just 2,722 were carried out on Thursday.
But he said the “very serious outbreak” was so far confined to the closed setting of the factory, and that the track and trace programme had been mobilised to locate people who might have come into contact with workers outside of the site.
Public Health Wales confirmed later on Monday that another 17 workers had tested positive, bringing the number of confirmed cases on the site to 175 following a “rapid screening phase”.
It said the increase was “as we anticipated” on the back of the focused trackand-trace programme, and did not mean the spread of infection was increasing.
Dr Christopher Johnson, consultant in health protection at Public Health
Wales, said: “Since we commenced targeted testing last Thursday, over 400 members of staff have provided samples.
“The deployment of rapid test and trace facilities has helped identify this situation, and we will continue to keep control measures in place to bring the outbreak to a rapid conclusion.”
Public Health Wales said it was “very unlikely” the public could catch coronavirus from food, and that it was working alongside factory bosses, Anglesey and Gwynedd Councils, the Health and Safety Executive, the Food Standards Agency, and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.
After the outbreak was reported on Thursday, the 2 Sisters Food Group announced it was “doing the right thing” and would cease work on site for 14 days with immediate effect.
The company said the first reported positive case at the plant was on May 28, and a full “safe ways of working” action plan had been in place since early March.
Production at the factory, where 560 people are employed, will be transferred to other company locations until July 2.
Also on Thursday, in Wrexham, 38 staff at the Rowan Foods factory tested positive for the virus, though bosses said the cases showed an increase in the locality rather than a spread within the site.
2 Sisters Food Group is one of the largest food producers in the UK, with brands including Fox’s Biscuits and Holland’s Pies.
The Llangefni site does not supply retail or branded food service customers, said the company.
FIRST Minister Mark Drakeford, below, has denied giving parents a “false promise” when the Welsh Government announced that children would be going back to school for four weeks.
Councils across Wales have told schools not to open for the last week, saying that the Welsh Government was unable to agree the extra week with unions representing school staff.
However Mr Drakeford has said that the case for an extension of the school term was always something that had be “resolved locally” and denied that children would miss out.
Education minister Kirsty Williams announced on June 3 that schools in Wales would be returning on June 29, and the school summer term would be extended by a week.
The summer term was extended by one week to 27 July, and the autumn half-term holiday will be stretched to two weeks.
Yet this is not happening in many areas.
Councils in Cardiff, Wrexham, Monmouthshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly have told schools not to open for the last week.
On Anglesey schools won’t even be going back on June 29 because of an outbreak of Covid-19 at the island’s chicken processing plant.
So far only Conwy council has said it will operate for all four weeks of the planned shortened summer term.
Asked about why some schools will only reopen for three weeks during the summer instead of four, Mr Drakeford told the daily briefing yesterday: “The Education Minister set out the position of the
Welsh
Government that where it is possible to do so, we believe it is in the interest of children in
Wales for schools to open for four weeks, but it was always the case that the fourth week, we were clear at the beginning, moved into non-contractual territory.
“Our proposal was for teachers to work one extra week, the fourth week in July and get that week back as an extra week at the half term in October.
“In the end, these things can only be resolved locally.
“Different local authorities face many, many different sorts of contexts and, where local authorities are able to open schools for the fourth week that is the right thing to do, but where they are not able to do it then, they as the employers have to be able to make that decision.
“They need to make it in consultation with their headteachers, with their staff, and, indeed with their parents.
“It is for them to carry that discussion with the fourth week forward.”
He said that pupils where schools close earlier “won’t miss out on the fundamentals”.
“Every pupil in Wales will still have an opportunity to come back into school, to meet their teachers, to check in, to catch up and to prepare for the summer and September,” he said.
“In some places that will take place over three weeks rather than four weeks, and that means more will have to be accomplished in the meetings that students have with their teachers.
“Our preference, was, and is, that where local authorities are able to do it, then the fourth week will be to the advantage of children and young people.
“But we have to recognise that local authorities face different challenges, different contexts and must make those decisions with the knowledge that they have on the ground, and with the responsibilities that they hold as employers.”