Just how Wales got second highest rate in world

ON December 22, 2020, almost exactly nine months to the date the UK was placed into its first national lockdown, Wales had the second worst coronavirus infection rate in the world.

Somehow, our country of just over three million people, had more Covid-19 cases in seven days relative to its population than any other country in the world except one.

Daily cases were higher than they had ever been before. As a result, the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 had grown to double the number seen in the first wave. The number of people dying with Covid19 had long since passed the peak of the first wave.

The only saving grace is that there was a better understanding of how to treat the virus, keeping more people out of ventilated intensive care beds and a vaccine ready to be rolled out.

But where did everything go wrong? After all, the country seemed to cope comparatively well in the first lockdown – and by August there was a sense that normality had somewhat returned to daily life.

People were free to travel, form extended households, go shopping and even enjoy a night out in the pub.

Although there were extra precautions in place, such as masks, hand sanitisers and test and trace forms to fill in, there was a sense of normality unimaginable back in March.

However, just four months after we were recording next to no new daily cases – and several days with no new deaths – the coronavirus situation in Wales was worse than it had ever been.

Our hospitals had twice as many Covid cases as they had in the first wave and people were dying faster than they did in April.

Unlike back in March where there was a clear period in which the UK acted too late, the unravelling which led to Wales’ second wave was slow - and certainly began sooner than people predicted.

And by now the weather was colder, people were less prepared to meet outdoors, and routine winter illnesses added extra pressure to our already stretched health service.

Fundamentally, lockdown fatigue had set in.

After a summer fairly free of restrictions, telling people they now had to go back to staying at home, away from family and friends, scarcely had the same impact as the first time around.

Ultimately, some people were not prepared to make the same sacrifices as they had done back in March – and could they be blamed?

And then there was Christmas, a time that back in March we all looked forward to in the hope we could celebrate, and commiserate, all that 2020 had brought us.

By the middle of December, it was clear that the festive period would be like no other.

Gone were the week-long celebrations, and in its place a single day where families were allowed to meet.

In retrospect, the entire autumn and winter had been a slow, inevitable journey into the crisis our health services now face.

On August 8, 2,448 people had taken a coronavirus test in Wales. Only five of them were positive. Just 0.2% of the people tested actually had the virus.

Coronavirus appeared to be disappearing. Of course, the opposite was true.

Life was restarting. And the virus has been increasing ever since.

Only four months later, four days after Christmas on December 29, some 9,870 people in Wales went to get a coronavirus test.

This time, a massive 3,463 tested positive. That was over a third, 36.1%, of the people who took a test.

The idea that testing explains everything has always been a myth.

The experts were right. The more time passes, the more accurate we can see their early predictions were.

While daily changes in infection rates thankfully means Wales now no longer appears as one of the worst affected nations on earth, this is a timeline of everything that led us to the devastating reality of having the second highest rate of coronavirus in the world.