FIREBREAK’S IMPACT WILL TAKE TIME
THE First Minister has admitted he doesn’t expect to see the impact of the two-week firebreak in Wales until after it ends today.
He also believes there is “a path through to Christmas” without the need for another lockdown, but that depends on how people behave.
Speaking to Sophy Ridge on Sky yesterday morning, the last day of the 17-day firebreak, Mark Drakeford said he is anticipating the number of new cases to continue to rise, even after the firebreak restrictions are eased.
Mr Drakeford said: “Early indications, particularly in things like travel, tell us that people in Wales have done what we’ve asked of them.
“When we come out of our firebreak period, then we will need to go on doing everything we can to keep this virus under proper suppression.”
Mr Drakeford also said it was “inevitable” that the number of infections would continue to rise in some parts of Wales during the firebreak period. It was revealed on Friday that Merthyr Tydfil had the highest rate of coronavirus infections in the UK, with 639.9 cases per 100,000 people on the basis of the latest sevenday rolling average.
Rhondda Cynon Taf, which borders the county borough, had the ninth-highest infection rate in the UK but the second-highest in Wales, with 534.7 cases per 100,000 people.
Mr Drakeford said: “People who were falling ill during the two weeks of the firebreak period were already infectious before the firebreak period began.
“We were absolutely certain that we would see those numbers continue to rise during the firebreak period itself. It is only in the couple of
weeks after November 9 that we will see the impact of the firebreak, then is when we hope to see the numbers decline, that is when we expect the number of people going into hospitals to begin to go into reverse.”
Some experts have warned that coronavirus will stay with us for some time yet, with scientists predicting we could see a number of repeated lockdowns before we get a hold on the virus.
Although restrictions in Wales are eased from today, there are still some things you won’t be able to do.
Mr Drakeford also told Ridge on Sky that he believed there was “a path through to Christmas” without needing to take firebreak restrictions again in Wales. But that depends on how people behave in the weeks that will follow when the firebreak ends today.
He said: “I’ve been saying to people the question we need to ask ourselves is not what can I do, how far can I stretch the rules, but what should I do, what should I do to keep myself and other people safe?
“If we avoid contact with other people and we travel only when we need to, work from home wherever we can, we will build on what has been achieved here over the last 17 days.
“That will give us a path through to Christmas without needing to go back into this extraordinary period of restriction.”
Mr Drakeford has maintained that he will not consider local lockdowns again but told Ridge on Sky that if “flare-ups” do happen, local restrictions will be more targeted to find the cause of cases, such as a factory outbreak.
He said: “We will not go back and rely on a patchwork of local measures, we are going to have a new national set of rules that are clearer, more simpler, and therefore easier to follow.
“That does not mean, of course, that if there are local flare-ups that local action may not need to be taken but it will not be a reliance on entirely local measures.”
“If there are local restrictions, we will target them at the cause of the numbers. Merthyr is the smallest borough in the whole of Wales, relatively low raw numbers drive quite big percentage and rate numbers.
“If in Merthyr there are specific reasons, we had for example a factory in Merthyr where there was an outbreak, what we will do instead of taking countywide measures we will try to think of more targeted things that we can do to bear down on any cause of local flareups.”