Fire-break is to save lives not Christmas
WALES’S “fire-break” is about “saving lives, not Christmas”, the First Minister Mark Drakeford said, hours before the country entered its 17-day lockdown.
Mr Drakeford warned that hundreds more people would die from coronavirus across Wales “unless we act now to bring this deadly disease under control”.
The Welsh Labour leader also blamed a decade of austerity imposed by the UK Government yesterday for leaving Wales’ health service at risk of being overwhelmed by rising numbers of people infected with Covid19.
He said the public’s compliance with the newest set of restrictions, which came into force at 6pmyesterday and last until Monday, November 9, would give hope that the country could “enjoy a version” of Christmas in two months time.
But Mr Drakeford stressed the measures “are about saving Christmas”.
He told the Welsh Government’s Covid-19 press briefing: “That’s the seriousness of the position we are in. Our ambition is we will not need to have this level of restriction again in Wales before Christmas.
“I want shops to be able to trade. I want people to be able to prepare. I want to offer people some hope that, provided we all do the right things, then we will still be able to enjoy a version of the holiday that we would have otherwise enjoyed.”
When asked if he envisaged people from outside Wales being prevented from entering the country for Christmas, Mr Drakeford said it was “impossible to predict” how Wales’s attempts to lower the prevalence of the virus “will mesh in with the difficulties faced elsewhere in the United Kingdom”.
Mr Drakeford said that while there were still people who seek to persuade others the pandemic is a hoax and the virus only a mild disease, they “do not face the families of the people who have died this week, who will never see lives, not and never speak to their loved one again”.
“They will never face the hundreds more people in Wales who would die unless we act now to bring this deadly disease back under control,” he added.
Mr Drakeford also said health services were “less well-prepared” to deal with Covid-19 due to the austerity measures imposed by Westminster in the decade before, after having previously stated the new lockdown was an attempt at avoiding the Welsh NHS becoming overwhelmed.
“The health service in Wales has suffered from a decade of austerity alongside every other public service that we face,” he said.
“And right across the UK, I think it can be argued that we have been less well prepared for coronavirus than we would have been had we not seen that 10 long years of underinvestment in our public services by a UK Government determined to tell us that that money couldn’t be found.
“We know now that wasn’t the case because when we needed to find money during this pandemic we’ve been able to find it and we could have found it then as well.”
The First Minister said discussions were under way to decide which measures will be used in Wales to tackle coronavirus after the “firebreak” period, which included the reopening of businesses and travel arrangements.
“We’ll be looking most importantly of all at how households operate. Coronavirus spreads inside households. Coronavirus loves it when people get together,” Mr Drakeford said.
“We’ve got to find ways in which we can allow people to meet with those who are closest to them while not going back to situations where the virus has been able to spread and run away from us in the way we’ve seen in the last six weeks.”
When asked whether Wales could follow a three-tier system as implemented in England, Mr Drakeford said the Welsh Government would look at “a system that works for us rather than a system that we have copied”.