First Minister ‘anxious’ about new Covid peak
FIRST Minister Mark Drakeford has admitted he is “anxious” about another coronavirus peak in October.
Mr Drakeford told the Senedd yesterday: “Coronavirus cases in Wales are not due to peak until into the month of October. I look at those figures every day and to me they are still a matter of considerable anxiety but our scientific advisers continue to say to us that this is what they would have expected.”
The Welsh Government says it is moving at pace on plans to vaccinate under-16s, who are the age group with the highest Covid rate in Wales, and Mr Drakeford said the hope is that the numbers will “plateau and hopefully begin to reduce”.
Mr Drakeford was asked by Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price about the decision by Welsh Labour to cancel its plans for a conference in Llandudno in November.
Mr Drakeford said: “My party took the view that against the background of that modelling it was not sensible to bring large numbers of people from all around Wales travelling together to a location where inevitably people spend lengthy periods of time in relatively crowded conditions indoors and that the risk was one that was better avoided.
“I think it is for individuals and organisations then to weigh up the position for themselves.
“That position will be influenced by timing: whether they’re planning an event at the point where numbers will be still raising rather than, hopefully, when things have stabilised and began to decline; whether their event is indeed, you know, a large-scale event with many hundreds of people attending; whether it is indoors or outdoors; to what extent can it be susceptible to other mitigation measures such as ventilation.
“We will make an army of all that advice that we see available to others. And then I think there will be decisions that others will make but I’d say in the specific contexts but they themselves are facing.”
A “Covid pass” will be introduced in Wales next month and adults will need to have a NHS pass to enter: ■ nightclubs; ■ indoor non-seated events for more than 500 people such as concerts or conventions;
■ outdoor non-seated events for more than 4,000 people and;
■ any setting or event with more than 10,000 people in attendance.
Mr Price asked Mr Drakeford about an issue at the Labour party conference in Brighton on Monday where bad weather meant random checks on vaccination status were made rather than a blanket check of all attendees.
Mr Drakeford used the example of a rugby international in Cardiff.
He said: “The public health adverse impacts of checking everybody’s pass would outweigh the advantages of the pass itself because you would have long queues of people spending lots of time jostling next door to one another.
“We are clear in the guidance, we will publish that in those circumstances, it will be possible for event organisers randomly to check people’s Covid pass. So anybody could be asked to demonstrate it but not everybody will be.
“That is what happened yesterday in the Labour Party conference when the adverse effects of having lots and lots of people queuing outside in very bad weather were thought to outweigh the advantages of the pass itself but the fact that it could be you, when you’re in that queue when you see people being called out and having to demonstrate it and know that you could be the next one.
“I don’t think that that impact was missed on people – you could see that it did mean something significant to them.”