Coronavirus deaths in Wales reach 1,000
MORE than 1,000 people have now died in Wales after testing positive for coronavirus, official figures show.
Health Minister Vaughan Gething said: “This isn’t just a number, but a sombre milestone and a stark reminder of what we are collectively fighting for.”
He asked everyone to pause for a moment to reflect and remember families who are grieving for the loss of a loved one.
He also told the press conference in Cardiff yesterday that measures such as social distancing were helping to reduce the spread of Covid-19 but warned transmission would continue until a vaccine or immunity was developed.
It came as:
■ Public Health Wales said 1,023 people in Wales have died with the virus, an increase of 26 on Monday’s figures. There are now 10,669 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country;
■ The number of confirmed cases rose by 145 with the total number of
cases in Wales standing at 10,669 yesterday; and
■ The UK’s latest reported death toll reached 29,427 – the highest in Europe.
Mr Gething told the Welsh Government’s daily press briefing: “We know that transmission of Covid-19 will continue until we have an effective vaccine, or there is enough acquired immunity in the population.
“We also now know that there are no simple solutions to the challenges that lie ahead. There are no quick fixes that will allow us to ease our restrictions quickly.”
Mr Gething said he was “absolutely confident” that more lives would have been lost if measures to reduce the spread of coronavirus had not been taken, and if the public had not supported and followed the rules.
He warned that the public health emergency, the scale of which had not been seen in peacetime before, would require “months more” of action from the Government, health service, social care and the public.
“We’re still in the middle of a fight that’s going to go on for months and months to come,” Mr Gething said.
He said the Welsh Government was “acutely aware” of the impact of the restrictions on the public, businesses and the economy.
Mr Gething described how a testing, tracking and tracing programme could be “pivotal” to when such measures could begin to be eased.
The plan will use digital technology and more traditional contact tracing methods involving a “large and dedicated workforce” to identify and contain the spread of Covid-19.
Mr Gething also warned people may face repeated spells of 14-day quarantine as the next phase of dealing with the coronavirus outbreak continues.
He said the scale of the challenge was “extraordinary” and said while the Welsh Government had “already asked a lot of the people of Wales we will need to ask even more if this plan is to succeed”.
“People may have to be quarantined for up to 14 days and, to keep us all safe, they may have to do this more than once,” he said.
To improve the rates of sampling and testing Mr Gething said there will be an expansion of Covid-19 drive-through centres, mobile testing vans, and home testing “over the coming weeks”.
He added that access to timely and accurate testing data will also be very important in the recovery phase.
“That is why, from the outset, we insisted that centres constructed in Wales by the UK Government and Deloitte used tests that could be processed in Wales to ensure that we retain the data for the use in our NHS and for the people that we serve,” the minister said.
On Monday, the Scottish Government said it hoped to have a testing and tracing system in place by the end of May, which would require an estimated 15,500 tests per day.
Mr Gething said Wales would need under 9,000 tests per day to carry out a similar strategy, acknowl
edging that it would have to “significantly increase” its current capacity of 2,100.
“I’m confident we’ll be at that sort of range before the end of May, when I’m looking for this plan to be ready for full roll-out across the country – if that is the point at which lockdown measures start to ease,” he said.
Asked again why the Welsh Government is not testing all staff and residents in care homes, Mr Gething said the science available did not support this.
“We need to use our testing resources in a way that provides benefit,” he said.
He said a test in itself doesn’t make a person safe; the test is a tool to help as opposed to an end in itself.
“I think we’ve somehow lost sight of that,” he said.
Asked whether Wales will be able to take part in the use of a tracing app which is being trialled in England, Mr Gething said: “We’re directly interested in the trial taking place in the Isle of Wight.”
He said Welsh Government officials were taking part in the oversight of it, so the data is understood.
Mr Gething said he has raised concerns about data and privacy management from a Welsh point of view, but suggested it may be possible to amend its usage in Wales to ensure the data is available to us and fed into the Welsh NHS.
“If those issues can be overcome, then you’d have to ask why on earth wouldn’t Wales want to be part of that,” he said.
Meanwhile, following a refinement of the medical criteria for shielding, the Welsh Government confirmed that around 21,000 patients have been added to the “Welsh Shielded Patient List”, taking the number advised to shield in Wales to approximately 121,000.
The government’s advice states: “In line with the initial 12 week shielding advice issued in late March, the latest letters advise people to shield until at least June 15, 2020.”
The majority of the 21,000 people added are within highrisk categories already identified which include: those who have received organ transplants; people with specific cancers; those with severe respiratory conditions; people with a rare disease that increases the risk of infections; and women who are pregnant with significant heart disease.
They have now been selected after further searches of the Welsh NHS’ medical care systems.
In addition to these groups, the chief medical officers of the four UK nations have agreed everyone on kidney dialysis should be advised to shield.
This will bring the total number of people in Wales told to shield from coronavirus to 121,000, with all of them eligible to receive food boxes.
Mr Gething said the list of shielded people may be further updated and anyone added will be sent a letter from the nation’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Frank Atherton.
The minister added: “The list of high-risk conditions is under constant review and we are following the latest scientific and medical advice to ensure we have identified and contacted everyone who needs to be shielded. Given the severe nature of the measures those who are shielding must take – self-isolation for 12 weeks which includes reducing all non-essential contact with other household members – it is important only those classed as high risk are added to it. The latest letters advise people to shield until at least June 15.
The Health Minister also announced new arrangements to ensure people who are shielding or self-isolating can continue to get their prescription medicines in partnership with the National Pharmacy Association, Wales’ third sector organisations and Royal Mail.
Mr Gething said that if schools were likely to reopen in before June 15, consideration would be given to how children in shielding households received education. He stressed schools would not reopen until it was “safe” for them to do so.
“We then have to think about what that means to the categories of people who can and can’t go out,” he said.
“If people are shielding we’ve got to think through how we support those children.” Asked whether Wales could still come out of lockdown if the public protection plan was not in place by the end of May, Mr Gething said the Government is considering “a number of different factors”.
“The plan is only one within them.”
He said while he expects to have a plan by the end of May, the “scale of what we need to do is extraordinary”.