Vaccination programme in Wales going 'from strength to strength' but still concerns over new Covid strain
The Health Minister has said the vaccination programme in Wales is going "from strength to strength" but there are still concerns over the new coronavirus strain across the country.
This comes after a further 50 coronavirus related deaths were announced on Wednesday and a further 455 Covid-19 cases recorded.
As of February 3rd, 462,497 people in Wales have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
It means Wales has now given an initial dose of vaccine to 14.7% of its population of more than 3.1 million people. This includes 80% of care home workers, 76.9% of care home residents and 78.9% of those in the 80 years and older group.
During the Welsh Government's coronavirus press briefing on Wednesday, Vaughan Gething MS said that Wales has now vaccinated more people and a larger percentage of the population than any other country within the UK.
The Health Minister also said there were concerns over the new strains of coronavirus that have been identified in Wales.
He added that 13 cases of the South African variant have been identified in Wales - up three from last week.
Three new cases of the new strain have been identified on Anglesey, in Conwy and Port Talbot.
On Tuesday it was announced that increased testing is being considered in Wales as concern grows over several new variants of Covid-19.
A handful of different strains have emerged over the past few months, which appear to be more infectious than the original one that started the pandemic.
These include a UK variant and a South African variant, both of which are present in Wales.
A third - the Brazil variant - is yet to be detected in the UK, although some epidemiologists believe it may already be here.
But the Health Minister said the Welsh Government is "not at this point going to look at an approach that has whole communities tested" across a whole local authority area.
Vaughan Gething MS said: "We’re looking at targeted testing. That’s why the backward contact tracing is really important to understand who those people may have been in contact with. "
Despite the Welsh Government saying that Wales' vaccination programme has gone "from strength to strength", the Health Minister said people should not be expecting coronavirus lockdown restrictions to be eased any time soon.
Vaughan Gething MS said: "I don’t think we should expect significant reduction in restrictions from mid-February onwards.
"The good news is that we’re moving in the right direction on a range of indicators. The number of people testing positive is now down to under 125 per 100,000 - before Christmas we were rarely up to 700 across Wales.
"In Scotland it’s about 140 per 100,000 people. England is double that so we’re moving in the right direction.
"We’re also making rapid progress with our vaccination programme.
"But I still don’t think people should expect there to be a rapid and significant easing in restrictions when we come to review matters in February. "