Travel ban set to be eased

FIRST Minister Mark Drakeford has announced that the ban on all but essential travel could be eased soon.

He said that an easing of the current regulations in a bid to “restore more freedoms” might be announced at the next Welsh coronavirus review this Friday. It could see the stay at home regulation eased to ‘stay local’ guidance.

“I said two weeks ago at the last review that I hoped this will be the last three weeks of the stay at home regulation,” Mr Drakeford revealed in a radio interview yesterday morning.

“So, that is what we will be trying to make happen on Friday of this week.

“We will be looking carefully at whether an intermediate period of stay local would be a first step on a journey.”

Talking on BBC Radio Wales’ Sunday Supplement, he added: “That is how we are trying to approach the whole business – carefully, cautiously, step by step, not doing too many things at once – so that we can monitor the impact of changes, and then restore more freedoms to people and to the economy once we are confident it’s safe to do so.”

Wales last went into lockdown just before Christmas following a spike in infections. However, since then the case rate, which measures the number of Covid infections per 100,000 people over a seven-day period, has fallen to a national average of 46, down from 437 in the run-up to December 25.

It comes as a further 18 deaths related to coronavirus in Wales and another 152 confirmed cases, according to the latest figures.

The figures reveal that 152 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the latest 24-hour period, a drop from 195 on Saturday. The number of people who have died with coronavirus in Wales within a month of a positive test now stands at 5,403.

The latest data also shows that 995,059 people in Wales have now received the first vaccine dose, up 11,640 from the day before.

The vaccine rollout programme in Wales is due to speed up rapidly from next week due to increased supplies.