‘No plans’ for return of Covid restrictions – but rising cases ‘worrying’
THE Welsh Government is not yet looking at reintroducing Covid restrictions despite rising numbers of cases, the First Minister said yesterday.
Mark Drakeford said Wales is yet to reach a peak from which numbers should fall, as has happened in Scotland.
But 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.
His comments came as the UK Government’s Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, ruled out implementing England’s socalled “Plan B” for the moment.
Wales has by far the highest Covid infection rate in the UK, with a figure of 617 cases per 100,000 people.
In comparison, Scotland’s seven-day infection rate is 311.1, England’s is 436.2, and Northern Ireland’s is 478.5.
The rate of people being taken into hospital with Covid also appears to be starting to rise.
Data published yesterday showed 13 further people in Wales have died with coronavirus and there were 3,450 new positive cases, bringing the total number since the pandemic began to 408,294.
Speaking yesterday, 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 that Christmas could go ahead in a much more normal fashion this year.
He yesterday said 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,” he said.
“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 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 that discussion a couple of weeks ago.”
Meanwhile in England, in his first-ever Downing Street press conference, Mr Javid said people must get their Covid-19 vaccines and any booster shots, as well as doing things like wearing masks in crowded places.
Asked if people face a tightening of restrictions if they do not get boosters or take care indoors, Mr Javid said: “Am I saying that if we don’t do our bit, get vaccinated, all those behavioural changes that we can make, that we are more likely to face restrictions as we head into winter...? Then I am saying that.
“I think we’ve been really clear that we’ve all got a role to play.
“If not enough people get their booster jabs, if not enough of those people that were eligible for the original offer, the five million I’ve talked about that remain unvaccinated, if they don’t come forward, if people don’t wear masks when they really should in a really crowded place with lots of people that they don’t normally hang out with, if they’re not washing their hands and stuff, it’s going to hit us all.
“And it would, of course, make it more likely we’re going to have more restrictions. Now, we want to avoid those.
“We’ve set out what those restrictions might look like, we’ve set out the Plan B restrictions for example, and we all want to avoid those.
“So we’ve all got a role to play. We can do it, because we’ve already done it... And so, if you’re invited for a vaccination then please take it up. Please, please.
“We’ve got plenty of vaccines, and we just need people to come forward and play their part to help us to keep defeating this virus and going ahead and getting more and more back to normal each day.”
Earlier, the Health Secretary repeated his warning that Covid-19 cases could reach 100,000 a day as the country enters a challenging winter period.
He said the UK was seeing “greater pressure” on the NHS but the Government will “do what it takes to make sure that this pressure doesn’t become unsustainable, and that we don’t allow the NHS to become overwhelmed”.
Deaths “remain mercifully low” at the moment, he said, but added: “We’ve always known that the winter months would pose the greatest threat to our road to recovery.”
Earlier, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation which represents health bodies, warned “we risk stumbling into a winter crisis” unless measures such as face masks and vaccine passports – the Government’s “Plan B” for the coming months – are introduced in England.
He called for ministers to come up with a “Plan C” of even tougher restrictions if those measures are insufficient to address pressure on the health service.