Health Minister won’t rule out bringing back Covid restrictions
THE Health Minister has refused to rule out bringing back restrictions as cases in Wales continue to soar.
The infection rate in Wales has risen to the highest in the UK, and Eluned Morgan said she didn’t want to make any promises because the number of cases was “extremely high”.
The latest seven-day infection rate across Wales based on the cases for every 100,000 people now stands at 651.9 – a sharp rise from the 617 reported the day before.
In comparison, Scotland’s seven-day infection rate is 316.5, England’s 447.9 and Northern Ireland’s is 473.3.
The rate of people being taken into hospital with Covid also appears to be starting to rise.
First Minister Mark Drakeford said on Wednesday that the Welsh Government is not yet looking at reintroducing Covid restrictions despite rising numbers of cases.
While he acknowledged the “worrying” numbers, the Welsh Labour leader said it was not yet time to return to more restrictions to clamp down on the spread of the virus.
Speaking to BBC Radio Wales yesterday, Ms Morgan admitted it was going to be the toughest winter in the history of the NHS in Wales.
When asked about whether restrictions would need to be brought in, she said: “I don’t want to make any promises because rates are extremely high at the moment.
“We are not seeing the kind of reduction that we were hoping to see, like they have seen in Scotland.
“We will keep an eye on the situation. We hope that we will be able to not have the restrictions that we have seen before, but it is up to the Welsh public to play their part as well and try and mix outdoors as much as possible, make sure there is ventilation, wash their hands.
“This virus has not gone away. There is a scenario in our Coronavirus Plan where we start to go back up the levels of restrictions.
“That is something we are keeping an eye on, but at the moment it is unlikely we are going down that path. At the moment – but who knows what the winter will bring?
“We still have to keep an eye on the situation, it is still something we are living and learning about as we go along.”
The next three-week review in Wales will be held next week, with any changes due to be made public next Friday.
On Wednesday, Mr Drakeford said: “We’re still seeing vaccination acting as a real defence for the NHS. So those high numbers in the community are not translating as they would have done earlier on into people falling ill and needing hospitalisation or intensive care, but nevertheless we are right to be concerned.
“Vaccination is the biggest defence and I have been talking with our officials today about what we can do to make sure that the booster programme is rolled out as fast as it’s clinically safe to do so and I’m likely to be talking to UK Government ministers later in the afternoon about how we can jointly run some campaign activity to persuade people to come forward and take the boosters.”
Two weeks ago the First Minister said he was optimistic Christmas this year could go ahead in a much more normal fashion.
He said this week the rising figures hadn’t changed that.
“I think the discussions we’ve had this week says we’re still not at the point of needing to think about the dramatic actions of what was needed at Christmas last year.
“There’s more we can do with the measures we’ve already got in place. Working from home is one of the biggest single contributions that we can make to reducing the mixing that leads to rising numbers.
“There’s more we can do to work with other public service employers or private employers as well to do that here in Wales to reinforce the messages about the importance of mask-wearing and hand-washing and social distancing where you can do that.
“We haven’t extracted everything we can from the measures we’ve already taken. We will want to do more on that. We will want to ensure our vaccination programme is reaching as many people as quickly as we can.
“We’ve got to have some confidence still in the modelling which shows that, as has happened in Scotland already, you reach a peak and then the other numbers do reduce. So we’re not at it in Wales – we wish we had reached it already. The numbers are a worry but we’re not part of a spectrum where we will be thinking about the sort of measures we were talking about when we had
I don’t want to make any promises because rates are extremely high at the moment. We are not seeing the kind of reduction that we were hoping to see, like they have seen in Scotland Health Minister Eluned Morgan
that discussion a couple of weeks ago.”
On September 10, modelling from Swansea University suggested Wales would reach the peak of the current wave of coronavirus “very soon”.
At the time the infection rate was above 500, and the modelling from Swansea University Medical School and the team at Super Computing Wales suggested that the peak in Wales would be by the end of September.
But cases and infection rates in Wales are continuing to rise.
Meanwhile, UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid has warned that restrictions could return in England if people don’t change their behaviour in the days ahead.
And Professor Stephen Powis, NHS England’s national medical director, has warned we are likely to see regional variation in Covid rates and pressures – hinting that local action may be needed.
The country currently has the same number of daily Covid deaths as last seen in March and we are heading towards 100,000 new cases a day.
Mr Javid said that if people do not get vaccinated and fail to make behavioural changes then it is more likely that restrictions will return.