Restaurants and pubs indoors from Monday,
IT WILL be easier for families and friends to meet outdoors under new changes to the coronavirus regulations in Wales.
From Monday, up to 30 people will be able to meet outdoors and children under 11 will no longer have to maintain a two-metre distance from each other or from adults.
The Welsh Government said that this move is in line with the latest scientific evidence about lower transmission rates for the virus in under11s.
Pubs, bars, restaurants and cafés will be able to re-open indoors from Monday, it has also been confirmed, as will indoor bowling alleys, auction houses and bingo halls.
First Minister Mark Drakeford – unveiling these changes today – will thank businesses for working with the Welsh Government and introducing new measures to reduce the spread of coronavirus, but he will also warn action will be taken against those who ignore the measures designed to keep Wales safe.
“The risk of a second wave is absolutely real,” he told a radio interview with Heart South Wales Drive with Jagger and Woody yesterday.
“We’re seeing it in Spain, we’re seeing numbers up in Germany. We’re seeing numbers up in France, let alone what we’re seeing in other parts of the world and we’re absolutely not immune to that here in Wales. It’s so important that people go on doing the right thing. Keeping a social distance. Washing your hands. All the things we know.
“The big thing that we would hope to do differently would be to be able to deal with spikes in coronavirus on a local basis rather than having to have a national return to restrictions.”
His comments come as two more people have died after testing positive for coronavirus in Wales.
The brings the overall number of deaths in people with lab-confirmed Covid-19 since the outbreak began to 1,556.
There have been no new deaths reported by Public Health Wales on 13 occasions in July (July 6, 10, 12, 13 and 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27 and 28).
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean no-one died with the virus on those specific dates as it can take several days for a death to be logged officially.
So-called “true” death figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which include all deaths where the virus was mentioned on a death certificate and not just cases cases identified in a lab, found that 2,501 had died with coronavirus in Wales up to July 17.
Meanwhile, PHW said the number of lab-confirmed positive cases of coronavirus in Wales had increased by nine to bring the total to 17,232.
Wrexham recorded the most new