Why can you go to the pub but not visit your family?

WALES Health Minister Vaughan Gething has addressed some of the common questions he is asked about coronavirus.

He was talking during a Welsh Government briefing and explained why people are able to go to the pub when they are not allowed to see family in their home.

Mr Gething told the briefing yesterday that it was a question he often hears and that he knew how “very difficult” it was for families who had been separated.

He said: “If you’re going to a pub, you can’t sit with a stranger. You can only go to a pub with someone you live with or are in the same bubble with.

“The law is very clear about what the owner and manager of a business must do to keep everyone who uses it safe.

“These cover everything from maintaining social distancing and collecting people’s details when booking a table to the cleaning regime, which needs to be followed.

“We do not – and would not – put similar laws in place to regulate people’s private homes in this way.”

He said that because so many cases of coronavirus have been linked to people gathering in other people’s homes, they had to put limits on who and how many people can meet indoors.

“And in areas under local restrictions, we have had to temporarily suspend bubbles, except for single people,” he said.

Mr Gething also talked about the argument that more people die from flu every year than coronavirus.

He told the briefing: “Last year about 1,900 people died from flu and pneumonia in Wales.

“Sadly, there have already been more than 2,500 deaths involving coronavirus.”

The briefing also covered the “rapid increase in cases across Wales”.

Mr Gething said: “The virus returned as people came home from holiday abroad and was spread as people socialised without social distancing.

“The majority have had a mild illness so far. But an increase in cases is followed within two to three weeks by higher hospital admissions, higher critical care admissions and more deaths.

“Last week, an average of 73 people a day were admitted to hospital with coronavirus. The number of people in hospital with coronavirus has almost doubled in the last fortnight.

“It is very easy to forget what things were like just six months ago, when around 150 people were admitted to hospital a day with coronavirus and our intensive care units, including the additional capacity the NHS created, were close to being overrun.

“If we can’t control the spread of this virus locally, we will see this happening again.”