LARGE PEAK IN NEW COVID CASES ON THE WAY
MINISTER’S WINTER WARNING AS HE SAYS FESTIVE SEASON ‘WON’T BE LIKE NORMAL’
WALES is on course to see a large peak of deaths involving coronavirus this winter, the Health Minister has warned.
Vaughan Gething, told of the concerns as he addressed the latest Welsh Government coronavirus press conference yesterday.
He also highlighted the devastating deaths of more than 200 people with the virus in Wales so far this month.
He said: “This ongoing autumn wave of cases has been rising sharply since the end of August.
“This wave has been so much bigger than the spring because mass testing has been available and we have been able to detect cases in the community.
“In the spring, we were only able to test people in hospitals and care homes.”
He added: “There was a large peak in the first wave and it would appear we are now heading towards another, large peak this winter.
“This underlines why we introduced the firebreak.
“In the first two weeks of November, Public Health Wales has recorded more than 250 deaths from coronavirus.
“This is a very sobering number. But of course, these are not just numbers – these are people who leave behind lives and loved ones.
“There will be more than 250 families across Wales who are mourning their loss.
“I hope these figures help explain why we are taking coronavirus so seriously and why we – like governments around the world – are taking action to protect people’s health.”
When it comes to this year’s festive season, meanwhile, the minister said Wales has “quite a long way to go” before finding out what coronavirus rules will be in place for Christmas.
Talks between the four UK nations on a potential joined-up approach to the festive period were ongoing, he said, with an announcement on whether families will be able to meet across borders unlikely to be made in the coming days or weeks.
Mr Gething said a recent reduction of Covid-19 cases in Wales following the 17-day firebreak could “easily reverse”, which made making a decision about what Christmas will look like difficult.
He told the briefing in Cardiff: “Whatever happens with Christmas and the festive season this year, it won’t be like normal.
“We’re still discussing issues about where we can get to with other governments across the UK on travel, and we’re still looking at the evidence about what we might be able to do around contact.
“But it does rely on the picture that we’ll see in the developing evidence over the coming weeks, so you shouldn’t expect there to be a definitive statement in the next few days or weeks. We have quite a long way to go, actually.”
Mr Gething said festive seasons had already been disrupted for other faiths including Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains celebrating Diwali last weekend.
His comments came as nearly 900 new coronavirus cases were reported in Wales, according to the latest daily figures.
Public Health Wales (PHW) yesterday announced 892 more people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 following a lab test.
This was a decrease on the 1,333 cases recorded on Sunday.
The total number of confirmed cases in Wales since the pandemic began to 67,106.
Two more deaths with Covid-19 were recorded yesterday, bringing the death toll recorded by PHW to 2,209. But the “true” number of deaths, recorded by the Office of National Statistics, using a different methodology, had reached 2,884 by October 31.
Wales’ infection rate has also seen a slight decrease with 164 positive cases per 100,000 people for the last seven days (November 7-13) compared with 164.5 per 100,000 on Sunday.
Blaenau Gwent is now the local authority with the most cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day average with 303.5, up from 282.3 on Sunday.
Merthyr Tydfil in second has seen its infection rate fall again from 336.5 on Sunday to 303.4 on Monday.
In less than a fortnight its number of cases per 100,000 has halved.
Neath Port Talbot had the third highest with 293.1 cases per 100,000, up from 285.4 the day before.
Cardiff reported the most cases in yesterday’s figures with 118, followed by Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) with 93 and Swansea with 86.
Other local authority areas that posted double-digit case increases included Caerphilly with 70, Blaenau Gwent with 57, Neath Port Talbot with 54, Newport with 48, Carmarthenshire with 42, Flintshire and Bridgend with 34, Torfaen and Wrexham with 33, Vale of Glamorgan and Merthyr Tydfil with 22, Denbighshire and Pembrokeshire with 19, Monmouthshire with 17, Powys with 13 and Ceredigion with 12.
Meanwhile, Conwy had nine new cases, Gwynedd had seven and Anglesey had two.
Mr Gething said there were “some early very positive signs” that new cases were beginning to fall across the country.
“This downward trend is continuing. The seven-day incidence rate for Wales is now around 160 cases per 100,000 people – a reduction of 70 from this time last week,” he said.
“In Merthyr Tydfil, which had the highest rates in the UK just over a week ago, the rate has more than halved to around 330 cases per 100,000 people [in Sunday’s figures].
“And in other parts of the South Wales Valleys – in Rhondda Cynon Taf and Blaenau Gwent – where we also saw very high rates, the incidence rate is now less than 300 cases per 100,000 people.”