In Wales to reopen Drakeford reveals
positive cases with three. Anglesey, Cardiff, Powys, Neath Port Talbot and Swansea each recorded one new case. The location of one final case was unknown.
Despite testing capacity standing at 15,000 each day in Wales, 2,612 took place on Wednesday.
Around 400 people were tested for Covid-19 on the first day of two mobile testing centres being set up in Wrexham.
PHW has confirmed that almost 200 people attended each of the centres, located at Hightown and Caia Park, on Wednesday.
Wrexham has become a “hotspot” for the virus over recent weeks, with the local authority frequently recording the most new positive cases in Wales.
The county now has 959.1 cases of the virus per 100,000 population since the outbreak began, second only to Merthyr Tydfil (959.8) in Wales.
Dr Chris Johnson, consultant in health protection for PHW and chairman of the multiagency outbreak control team, said: “We are very grateful to people in Wrexham for their quick and wholehearted response to this opportunity to be tested.
“Please come forward for testing, even if your symptoms are mild. The more people with symptoms who come forward, the more cases we will find.
“More people can then be referred into the Test, Trace, Protect programme, allowing contact tracers to take action to put a stop to the spread of coronavirus in the area.”
Dr Johnson confirmed that a larger number of coronavirus cases were being seen in Wrexham than in other parts of Wales.
“Although we haven’t received the results from these testing sessions yet, we are reassured that there is no evidence of a rapidly escalating situation,” he added.
■ Meanwhile people who test positive for coronavirus or are showing symptoms will now have to isolate for 10 days instead of seven.
Yesterday’s announcement was made in a joint statement by the UK’s Chief Medical Officers.
They said they came to the decision after discovering new evidence that suggests that the virus has a “low but real possibility of infectiousness between seven and nine days after illness onset”.
They stressed the importance of self-isolating when symptoms first appear as well as getting a test for contact tracing to take place.
■ People from different households in Greater Manchester, parts of East Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire are banned from meeting each other indoors from midnight last night as part of “immediate action” to keep people safe, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said.
He tweeted: “We’re constantly looking at the latest data on the spread of coronavirus, and unfortunately we’ve seen an increasing rate of transmission in parts of Northern England.
“We’ve been working with local leaders across the region, and today I chaired a meeting of the Local Action Gold Committee.
“Based on the data, we decided that in Greater Manchester, parts of West Yorkshire & East Lancashire we need to take immediate action to keep people safe.
“The spread is largely due to households meeting and not abiding to social distancing.
“So from midnight tonight, people from different households will not be allowed to meet each other indoors in these areas.
“We take this action with a heavy heart, but we can see increasing rates of covid across Europe and are determined to do whatever is neccessary to keep people safe.”