New restrictions are for the good of us all

THINGS are moving quickly. Just three weeks ago, in August, the First Minister was talking about plans for trialling sports and arts events with spectators. A second wave seemed far off.

Sure, we had seen local lockdowns take hold in England but it seemed Wales was more on top of things. Outbreaks in Wrexham and on Anglesey, for example, had been dealt with without the need for a local lockdown.

Now, however, with autumn in the air, plans to move forward, to open up, to get moving are being put to one side and we have been told to batten down the hatches to prepare for a second wave.

Last night Mark Drakeford announced that from tomorrow at 6pm, hospitality businesses in Wales – including pubs, cafes, restaurants and casinos – will have to close at 10pm. They will also have to provide table service only. Offlicences, including supermarkets, will also have to stop selling alcohol at 10pm. This is similar to what is being imposed in England.

To help people who are asked to self-isolate, the Welsh Government will provide a £500 payment to support those on low incomes who are unable to go to work. This should serve as a reminder of how derisory statutory sick pay is in the UK and how much it needs reform.

A good thing about the new changes in both Wales and England is that they bring both into more of an alignment. This helps keep a more consistent message, which in turn avoids unhelpful confusion and helps with compliance – and greater compliance ultimately means fewer people dying from the coronavirus.

Of course, many of the Prime Minister’s “new” measures simply bring England back to where Wales has been all along in what some have dubbed Boris Johnson’s 14th U-turn since the crisis began in March. Still, arguably, if you continually U-turn, you are at least going the right way 50% of the time.

As we said here yesterday, nothing about a second wave is inevitable. The responsibility sits with us all.

And – provided our elected officials equip our health and social care workers with the correct PPE and also create enough testing capacity to trace cases’ progression through any community – then real progress can be made in staving off this virus and its threat to life and livelihood.

None of us is operating in a vacuum. We all need to comply with these rules for each other and ourselves.