WELSH First Minster Mark Drakeford said officials “decided to hold back” on relaxing some lockdown restrictions in Wales on Monday due to concerns about the Indian variant.
Wales will move to alert level two on Monday with the reopening of indoor hospitality and entertainment venues.
The two-metre social distancing rule will not change, while smaller events will not yet go ahead.
Drakeford was asked if the Indian variant gives him any pause for thought, and he told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “Yes, it certainly does. There were 17 cases of the Indian variant in Wales yesterday and over 700 in England.
READ MORE: Linda Bauld says Glasgow Covid spike may involve Indian variant
“And as we were just hearing, there’s quite a concentration of that in the north-west of England and there’s a lot of traffic between the north-east of Wales and the north-west of England so we were considering a small number of further easements from Monday but have decided to hold back on those until we get the advice from Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) met yesterday, our own scientific advice which we’ll receive imminently, just to make sure that we are continuing to take a precautionary approach in case the Indian variant is on the march, and therefore Wales would be vulnerable to it as well.”
Asked if he would be prepared to delay further steps in his road map if advice from Sage suggests that it is necessary, Drakeford said: “Yes, we would. We tried our best to follow the scientific advice at every step and if the advice were to be that we should hold back on some further easements because the risks in doing so would be too great then certainly that is what we would do.”
Yesterday Scotland’s national clinical director Jason Leitch said an outbreak of Covid-19 in Glasgow’s southside is “relatively contained”, adding he hopes the city can move to level 2 on Monday as planned.
However he said no decisions have been taken yet and the First Minister would give an update on Glasgow and Moray tomorrow.
Nicola Sturgeon has said Moray, which has a case rate of 98.1 per 100,000 is likely to remain in level 3. The latest data for Glasgow shows a case rate of 70.9 per 100,000.
READ MORE: Covid Scotland: Places with most coronavirus cases this week
Leitch thinks people should be concerned about growing case numbers in Scotland’s latest city, but said there has been a “precision public health response”.
The reasons behind the increasing cases in Glasgow are not fully known, but it is believed the Indian variant has played a role.
Professor Linda Bauld has called for door-to-door testing to go ahead, while NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and the city council, is writing to households in the G41/G42 areas asking them to get tested whether or not they have symptoms.
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