Welsh ministers mull changes to Covid restrictions as variant fears continue
Welsh ministers are making final decisions today on changes to the Covid restrictions here in Wales ahead of an announcement on Friday.
They had hoped to say that they would be able to ease the rules significantly, but concerns around the Delta variant of the virus - formerly known as the Indian variant - are leading political leaders across the UK to pause for thought.
On Thursday afternoon First Minister Mark Drakeford told me he was concerned about the Delta, or Indian variant, of coronavirus and felt it was "only a matter of time" before the variant gained a bigger foothold in Wales.
At time of writing there are 97 confirmed cases of the Delta variant in Wales, which has now become the most dominant strain in the UK.
The First Minister said: "I'm concerned about it [Delta variant] on two levels.
"We have examples of the Delta variant here now in Wales and while they are being very carefully monitored by our public health colleagues, some of those clusters are now of quite a scale.
"So I am very concerned about what we've already got in Wales and I'm even more concerned about the fact that the numbers in other parts of the United Kingdom, Scotland and England, are growing far faster.
"Our border is very porous. Viruses don't understand when they're crossing a border in any case and it's probably only a matter of time before we see that variant having an even bigger impact in Wales.
"So it is changing the context within which we are dealing with the coronavirus crisis."
Here in Wales, Friday's announcement will spell out the decisions made in the latest review. The restrictions are reviewed every three weeks and at the last one, the First Minister said he hoped to move all of Wales into Alert Level 1.
In the Welsh Government's system of deciding which rules apply - similar to the UK Government's 'road map' for England - Alert Level 1 is the lowest tier of restrictions, intended for when the situation in Wales is described as 'low risk.'
It would see significant changes to the rules on mixing indoors in private homes with up to six people from different households allowed to meet.
Extended households (bubbles) would change from the current two households to three (plus a single person/single parent family 'support bubble').
Groups of up to 30 people will be able to meet informally outdoors, while the number of people allowed at organised activities would also increase. Indoors the limit would go up from 30 to 50, outdoors the limit would increase from 50 to 100.
These organised events would including weddings, funerals and other religious ceremonies as well as wedding receptions and wakes.
However people would continue to be advised to work from home if possible in Alert Level 1, social distancing will still be in place and people will be told to wear face masks in all indoor public places.
I understand that scientific advice is that the risk from the Delta/Indian variant is relatively low, but that there isn't enough data to know for sure what impact it might have, which is why the plans are being looked at again.
It's why the Scottish Government has paused some of its plans to ease restrictions while senior UK Government figures have suggested that it might not be able to lift all the pandemic rules in England on June 21st as planned.
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