Minister spreads a little Christmas cheer over Covid restrictions fears
ECONOMY Minister Vaughan Gething has said that modelling for Wales suggests further Covid restrictions will not be needed over Christmas.
With the festive period fast approaching, people all over Wales are wondering if they are in for another bleak and restricted Christmas like the one we saw last year.
At a Welsh Government press conference yesterday, Economy Minister Vaughan Gething gave his views on how the coming holiday period would be different.
When questioned by the Western Mail, the former health minister said that he couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be serious supply chain issues, and suggested there would be limited choice for goods such as turkeys.
He said: “So the challenge of this Christmas is, for example, turkey producers saying there’ll be enough turkey for everyone to have a turkey but the choice will be limited. So we are seeing some constraints. I also heard that some suppliers are worried about their supply chains for a range of goods coming in.
“I couldn’t give you a guarantee here – it’d be foolish for me to try to do so – about the exact nature of all of those supply chains and all of the challenges that might arise in the next week or two.”
On restrictions on socialising, such as those we saw last year, Mr Gething said that the modelling did not suggest this would be needed.
He said: “The modelling suggests that we may not need to have further restrictions in place like going back up the alert levels. The challenge, though, is with the rate of cases we have we know that will continue to place real pressure on the NHS that is s busy with t ot other e work ok in a way ay it t hasn’t been for much of the pandemic previously. We also know that we e are a e going go g to t get a flu season this year. We’re no not quite sure how significant that w will be. But we had very low rates of flu fl circulating last year so that’s an extra ext challenge.
“So Christmas Christm this year will undoubtedly be b substantially better than last year because I really don’t think we’re going to have to make the same sort of decisions we did last year unless there really is a vaccinebusting variant that would cause real concern for us.
“The challenge, though, is when you look around the rest of northern and eastern Europe you’re seeing a further surge in Covid cases. And we already have very high case rates here.”
Mr Gething did say that introducing the Covid pass to pubs, restaurants and bars was being actively discussed in cabinet, adding that he believes the industry accepted the need for the introduction of the
measure.
Pointing to the persistently high rates, he said: “That’s why we’re actually discussing whether we do need to further roll out the Covid pass in hospitality. Cabinet will meet again this week. We’ve had active conversations across hospitality, and they understand that there’s one extra measure that could help us to maintain the level of openness we have now and businesses’ ability to trade effectively.
“They all understand – they don’t want anything like moving up to alert level one because that really will cost businesses and jobs. But we need to understand and balance off the higher rates of Covid we face and whether we could and should act now or whether it’s better to wait and see. And that may mean we may need to take further action in a less managed way than we might otherwise have the opportunity, but those are discussions we’ll need to conclude in the near future to give certainty to businesses and public.”
The economy minister used the opportunity to call on more people to take up the booster vaccine being offered.
He said: “The vaccination provides us with tremendous support and the ability to carry on having a range of services and businesses open. That’s why we haven’t seen the sort of extraordinary challenges that our healthcare system faced at this time last year moving through the Christmas period. It’s meant that fewer people need to get to a hospital, fewer people are losing their lives, and that the difference is extraordinary.
“That’s why we placed so much emphasis on encouraging people to get their booster. I’m going to get mine. I had the appointment – I’ll definitely get my booster too. I’d encourage everyone to take that up, and to make it as easy as possible for people who work for you or work alongside you to get their booster as well when the opportunity arises.”