Household limit on the rule of six to be scrapped
SIX people from any number of households will be able to meet outdoors in Wales from Saturday.
The current rule is that six people from a maximum of two households can meet outside.
From Saturday it is being relaxed, which the Welsh Government says will allow young people in particular to meet with friends once again.
The six does not including children under 11 years of age or carers.
First Minister Mark Drakeford has confirmed that outdoor hospitality will be allowed to open from Monday.
He had already published the date of April 26 as the date venues should be working towards, but has now confirmed they can go ahead and open their doors again.
People meeting outside will have to follow social distancing rules.
No changes are being made to meeting indoors.
Further rule changes are expected to be announced on Thursday, ahead of a press conference by the First Minister on Friday.
As it stands, it is expected that he will announce that from April 26:
■ Outdoor attractions, including funfairs and theme parks, will be
allowed to re-open;
■ organised outdoor activities for up to 30 people can take place; and
■ wedding receptions can take place outdoors but will also be limited to 30 people.
The Welsh Government had already brought forward some easing of restrictions in relation to forming extended households, visiting the gym and organised activities.
It comes as the infection rate across Wales has now dropped to 15.9 cases per 100,000 people for the seven days up to April 14.
Mr Drakeford said: “The public health context in Wales remains favourable, with cases falling and our vaccination programme continues to go from strength to strength. Because meeting outdoors continues to be lower risk than meeting indoors, we are able to bring forward changes to allow any six people to meet outdoors.
“This will provide more opportunities for people, especially young people, to meet outdoors with their friends. This will undoubtedly have a significant positive impact on people’s wellbeing.
“I’m also pleased to confirm outdoor hospitality will be allowed to reopen from Monday, April 26.
“These changes will help the hospitality sector recover after a difficult twelve months.
“It is thanks to the continuing efforts of people across Wales we are able to introduce this change. Together, we will continue to keep Wales safe.”
Responding cautiously to the conformation from the Welsh Government about a further easing of lockdown restrictions, Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats Jane Dodds said: “This is obviously good news for the hospitality sector which has been so hard hit by Covid especially during this current lockdown.
“I want the Welsh Government to ensure that financial support remains for those bars and restaurants who do not have outdoor seating and am calling for support to be given to those businesses who are only able to partially open.
“As customers we all have a duty to behave sensibly and to follow the rules. If we don’t we face the very real danger of another lockdown.”
Meanwhile, the number of newly reported Covid-19 deaths in the UK has dropped to its lowest level for more than seven months.
Just four people were reported yesterday as having died with 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19.
It is the fewest number of deaths to be reported on a single day since September 7.
The figure is not a reliable realtime snapshot of Covid-19 deaths, however.
The time between a death taking place and a death being reported is typically longer over weekends, meaning the numbers announced on Sundays and Mondays are much lower than those on other days.
A more accurate measure of the trend in Covid-19 deaths is the seven-day rolling average.
This currently stands at an average of 25 deaths reported per day – the lowest it has been since September 19, and down 98% from the secondwave peak of 1,248.
Figures for reported deaths are published by the UK Government and only include people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.
The total number of deaths in the UK based on the 28-day cut-off now stands at 127,274.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have been 151,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
Elsewhere, India has been added to the coronavirus “red list” in response to mounting concern about the number of cases there and the emergence of a variant.
The move, announced just hours after Boris Johnson was forced to cancel a trip to the country, comes into force at 4am on Friday, meaning Britons returning after that point will be forced to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days.
Anyone who is not a UK or Irish resident or a British citizen will be banned from entering the country if they have been in India in the previous 10 days. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said so far 103 cases of the Indian variant had been identified in the UK.
Concern about variants of the disease – and whether existing vaccines will prove effective – has led to the Government ramping up plans for a campaign of booster shots later this year.
Mr Hancock told MPs: “We’ve recently seen a new variant first identified in India. We’ve now detected 103 cases of this variant, of which again the vast majority have links to international travel and have been picked up by our testing at the border.”
Mr Hancock said the samples have been analysed to see if the new variant has any “concerning characteristics” such as greater transmissibility or resistance to treatments and vaccines.
He added: “After studying the data, and on a precautionary basis, we’ve made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the red list.”
The Prime Minister had been due to travel to India on Sunday on a trip which had already been dramatically scaled back due to the pandemic.
Mr Johnson and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi agreed the cancellation of the trip as New Delhi entered a week-long lockdown to tackle a surge in cases and prevent a collapse of the capital’s health system, as India reported 273,810 new infections – the highest daily rise since the pandemic began.
The Prime Minister said: “I do think it’s only sensible to postpone, given what’s happened in India, the shape of the pandemic there.”
The Health Secretary highlighted the success of the vaccine rollout with 10 million people now having received two doses – and falling hospital admissions and deaths.
But he told the Commons: “The biggest risk to our progress here in the UK is a new variant that the vaccine does not work as well.”
In the same way that updated vaccines were deployed to tackle flu mutations, Mr Hancock said the Government was “ramping up plans for a booster shot to make sure our vaccines stay ahead of the virus”.
“We’ve already procured enough vaccine doses to begin the booster shots later this year,” he said.
Work was being carried out to assess which vaccines will be effective in targeting “variants of concern”, such as the one first found in South Africa.
Mr Hancock said 557 cases of the variant had been detected since December, with a “cluster” of cases in south London and isolated cases in Barnet, Birmingham and Sandwell over the last week.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth welcomed the decision to red-list India.
“I am a member for Leicester and I’m immensely proud of our deep ties and bonds to India,” he told MPs.
“But we must always be vigilant, be driven by data and have zero tolerance for variants that could set us back.”