Hope of a more ‘normal’ Christmas – if we all still try to halt Covid spread

WALES’ First Minister Mark Drakeford has said he expects Wales will be able to enjoy a “normal” Christmas this year.

Mr Drakeford was speaking as he announced the results of Wales’ threeweekly lockdown review and prepared to publish a report which will lay out what would happen in a worst-case scenario, such as a new Covid variant, vaccine immunity or extra NHS pressure.

He said that report, due on Friday, is a worst case and he does not think Wales will end up needing to bring back masks or restrictions on people meeting.

But he warned people need to be vigilant and continue to take all possible measures to stop the spread of Covid. If that happens, he said Christmas this year could look as it did in pre-pandemic times with no restrictions on travel or household mixing.

He also spoke about the current situation with schools, the chaos in the Senedd this week, and a new diary date to see the Prime Minister. The full interview is below.

Can you tell us a bit more about Covid Urgent and what the trigger for that would be if we needed to move into it, and what the restrictions could look like.

Covid Urgent is the less likely of the two scenarios that our plan sets out. We don’t expect to be in that position. We are hopeful that we will be able to continue through the autumn and the winter with the level of restrictions that we currently see in place, but we have to plan for things being less good than we expect. We could see a new variant emerge that we don’t have in Wales at the moment; vaccine immunity could wane faster than we are expecting, and therefore we have to plan for more difficult circumstances.

Now it is a lot more complicated planning this winter than it was last winter. Last winter, essentially the health service was preparing for coronavirus. This year, it’s trying to do all the other things we asked the health service to do and to catch up on things it wasn’t able to do during the height of the pandemic, and we have to plan for a flu season as well. That’s why our plan doesn’t have simple figures to say if you get to a certain level, this will happen. It’s just not possible to do that when you’ve got so many different factors, all having to be taken into account at the same time. What the plan does say is that if we reached a point where, because of those unanticipated events, the pressure on the health service became unsustainable, then we would have to move back up to the levels of restrictions that we’ve set out in the plan.

I just want to be clear with everybody. That is not what the modelling we’ve done tells us is most likely to happen if we continue to do the things that we’ve learned to do together; the mask wearing, the hand washing, the social distancing, all of those things, then we think it is most likely that we will be able to continue into the autumn and winter with no more restrictions than we have at the moment.

We haven’t seen this plan, so how does it look? Is it looking at things like bringing masks back and families not mixing again? Hospitality closing? Are examples of what could happen in there?

Yes, so the plan has five different levels in it. Level zero is the one like currently the lowest, but it takes you all the way back up to level four so people, those people who have to pay attention to this will be very familiar with that because that’s the same set of levels we’ve had now for many months, and at each level it indicates the sort of restrictions that would be required. So, that’s how the plan is structured, and it moves back up to the levels in the way that you described. There are some things you could do that would not be hugely more intrusive than the things we’re doing already. Masks everywhere, again, for example?

Using masks in more settings, requiring the Covid pass to be used in more settings, more emphasis on people meeting in safer context outdoors and so on, right up to the point which we don’t anticipate getting to where we will be back with a sort of restrictions we had to use last year.

We could see a new variant emerge that we don’t have in Wales at the moment; vaccine immunity could wane faster than we are expecting, and therefore we have to plan for more difficult circumstances First Minister Mark Drakeford

What will the trigger be? Is it going to be looking at case numbers, capacity in hospitals, but what’s the actual trigger for bringing these back in?

So you’re right, there’s no single trigger it’s a combination of factors. The impact on the NHS is clearly the major one, the extent to which coronavirus is leading to hospitalisation, use of intensive care, and so on. But the level of circulation of coronavirus in the community still causes harm. We have today in Wales some public services which are having to deal with people not being in work, because they’re just ill with the virus, they’re not so unwell that they need to be in hospital, but they’re too ill to be in work and that is causing an impact on the ability of some public services to operate in the normal ways so it’s that combination of factors, but we will be looking at the impact of the virus alongside everything else on the ability of our public services to go on operating.

As we sit here today, what’s your best guess about what winter is going to look like? Is there, for example, going to be a normal Christmas for people this year?

I think winter will be challenging but I think the model is telling us that provided we do all the things we can do then Christmas this year will be easier than the Christmas we had last year. But the things we can do are really important. So please, if you haven’t been vaccinated against coronavirus come forward and be vaccinated. That’s the thing that helps us the most. When you’re invited for a flu vaccine as many people will be, done by their GPS, come and have the flu vaccine, because we are very anxious that there will be a higher circulation of flu this year than last year, and then those simple other things – the mask wearing, the hand washing, being careful about being at a distance with other people, not meeting more people than you need to, meeting outdoors where you can. All of those things that we can do in our own lives, adapt to a significant defence against coronavirus this winter. And if we do all of those things, then we can see a path into the autumn and through the winter, in which we won’t need to go back to the sort of restrictions we faced at Christmas last year.

With a huge caveat, things can change very very quickly with Covid, as it stands now, the modelling and the data you have is showing that Christmas could be mixed households, no restriction on numbers, or one-day event. So as it stands right now, things are looking good?

Christmas would look like it does today, because that’s what we are hoping for.

So as it was pre-pandemic?

We still have the sort of things we’re asking people to do today; we’re still asking people to wear masks on public transport and uncoated public places, we’re still saying that people work from home where you can, we’re going to have a Covid pass from Monday, so all of those things are likely still to be with us at Christmas.

So more than a day, and people mixing in a house?

Yes, as you can now, but to make that happen we’ve all got to do the things that we can do, if people

think ‘it’s all over, I don’t need to bother, that doesn’t mean me’, then I’m afraid, you know, we’ll all find ourselves back in more difficulties. You mentioned about flu jabs, and people who are invited for them having them, but if people are in a position to pay for them privately, would you be advising people

to have them, even without the underlying conditions?

Yes, we have got very good networking worlds of community pharmacies. Many, many of them will offer flu vaccination. You can just turn up, very often you don’t need an appointment, you can go in and it can be done on the spot and for many people in work that is just a more convenient way of doing it.

We are offering NHS flu vaccination to more people in Wales this winter than ever before. But if you’re not in one of those vulnerable groups, and you can go and have it, you’re definitely playing your part in protecting yourself, and preventing the stresses and strains the flu season brings into the health service.

Can I look back at what’s been a slightly interesting week and Covid passes. Do you know where Gareth Davies was when the vote was meant to be happening earlier this week and why he didn’t manage to vote?

My understanding is only probably what anybody else would be. I believe he was at a Conservative Party Conference. My own view, for what it’s worth, is that we’re paid to represent our constituents in the Senedd. I went to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton, but came back with all my Labour colleagues in time to make sure we were participating in the Senedd on the Tuesday afternoon. Mr Davies was at his party conference while he was unable to join this session remotely. I don’t have any intelligence on that.

When were you aware that Plaid wasn’t going to back you on the passes vote?

I don’t think we knew definitively until quite late in the morning or the start of the afternoon. We did continue discussions but it wasn’t possible to resolve the issues that lay between us. I think we’ve all learned on my side of the government and the Plaid side as well that when we have issues that could be resolved we need more time in order to be able to do it in. An early warning system would be a good idea.

There was huge opposition to Covid passes, has that united opposition, and has the arguments that they made to the Senedd given you any second thoughts on Covid Passes coming in on Monday?

Not on Covid passes, they really are very straightforward and a very ordinary thing to do. On the Senedd, there was a pincer movement, on the one side were the Conservative Party, arguing there was no need for passes, they were too much of an intrusion. And on the other side you had Plaid Cymru arguing that Covid passes didn’t go far enough, that we needed a vaccine certification system in Wales, so they were united in opposing for completely different reasons. I think they are straightforward things, thousands of people in Wales have used them already. There was a bit of an irony, as I came straight back upstairs from the vote, looked at my emails, and the first thing I saw was headed Westminster Abbey. I looked inside it because I’m going next week to London for the first time in a very long time to go to a service in Westminster Abbey to mark the centenary of the foundation of the British Legion.

Well, underneath the headline it said, ‘You will be required to show a Covid pass in order to get access to Westminster Abbey’. This is something being used right across the United Kingdom. It is a defence, that we can use when large numbers of people get together, it will help us all during the winter, people will get used to it very quickly.

There are thousands of children off school at the minute with lots of teachers telling my colleagues about the chaos of children missing class and staff self isolating. So what can the Welsh Government do in very practical terms to help?

There are a series of immediate things. First of all, the biggest thing that will help is if numbers in the community continue to fall. So we’ve seen falls in the last four days and the less coronavirus there is about the fewer people will come into contact with it. So suppressing the numbers and continuing on the pathway is really important. You’ll have seen the Jeremy Miles announcement this week that we’re going to offer lateral flow tests to young people who come into contact with somebody at home and the vaccination programme for 12 to 15-year-olds is beginning.

Now we waited a couple of weeks for people to have conversations inside families and to get clinical advice where they wanted it. So all of these things together will I think begin to improve your position in schools. We have been tracking, very closely in Wales, the position they faced in Scotland, their schools went back three weeks early, they reached a peak before us at a higher peak and their numbers have fallen rapidly since. We’re a few weeks behind them because our schools went back three weeks later, but if we continue to follow the same path as we have been, that I think we will see the pressures that are there in schools, reduce over the weeks that are now to come.

You mentioned you’re seeing Boris Johnson next week at the event in London, is that something you’re looking forward to?

There is a date in the diary now for a follow-up meeting to the meeting we had in June, with the Prime Minister, so he may be at Westminster Abbey, but I don’t have any real opportunity to talk to him.

But in the following week there’s now a date in the diary for a proper meeting. We met last night again with Michael Gove... the First Ministers of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. As you know, throughout the pandemic I have always argued that it is good to talk and to find more opportunities to share experiences and work on common issues. Yesterday evening’s meeting was a useful meeting in that regard, and the meeting with the Prime Minister should be as well.

GARETH FULLER