‘Wales is facing a hard winter with more virus restrictions’
WALES must prepare itself for a “difficult winter” of further coronavirus restrictions, its chief medical officer has said.
Dr Frank Atherton warned the virus will “be with us for some time” and could require areas moving in and out of lockdown.
His comments came as more than 750 new positive cases of the virus were reported in Wales – the most recorded in a single day.
Yesterday, Dr Atherton told the Covid-19 press briefing that Wales could operate a “flexible policy” to reimpose restrictions if needed, and said he could not rule out a further tightening of rules for licensed premises if needed during the school half-term.
“I know that people don’t want to hear that further restrictions might be necessary, especially as we’ve been through a very difficult time in the summer, and things were improving,” he said.
“It’s not what people want to hear, but I think we need to prepare ourselves for quite a difficult winter.
“It’s really while we wait for a vaccine to become available that we have to really look after ourselves and keep viral transmissions low.”
Dr Atherton said that while he hoped vaccinations would be available by the spring of next year, “they certainly won’t be available for everybody”, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying on Tuesday that the most vulnerable would likely be first in line.
Referring to the search for the vaccine, he added: “There are a number of promising candidates, which are rapidly progressing through research trials, but we are still some way off having a vaccination against this virus ready to be rolled out throughout the population.
“Small quantities of a vaccine could be available for those at the highest risk within the next six months if trials continue to progress well.”
At the moment there is no vaccine or cure for Covid-19.
Looking further into the future, Dr Atherton said: “We are planning now for a mass vaccination programme in Wales as soon as a vaccine becomes available.
“The UK Government is leading the work to fund and buy vaccines for the UK.
“Millions of doses of the most promising vaccines have been ordered.”
In a previous interview, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said that a vaccine will not be a magic bullet.
Meanwhile, the chief medical officer also warned of a “step change” in the amount of new virus cases, with Public Health Wales
(PHW) reporting 752 cases of Covid19 in the previous 24 hours, compared to 425 cases on Tuesday.
It brought the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 27,624, while the number of deaths increased by three to 1,643.
Dr Atherton said though some of the rises in reported cases could be attributed to an increase in testing, with 10,518 tests carried out on Tuesday, there was “certainly more viral transmission going on” across the country.
There were signs the resurgence of the virus was moving away from people aged between 15 and 30 and into older groups of adults, he said, bringing along an increased risk of hospitalisation and pressure on intensive care units.
Public Health Wales data for Tuesday showed the most common age group for new cases were women between 50 and 59, followed by women aged 20-29 and women aged 40-49.
Dr Atherton said that in Cardiff, in the first week of August, about 11% of positive cases were among over60s.
In the last week of September, that was about 16%, he said.
He said the rise is a worry as it is known that with age comes the risk of serious illness, adding that the Welsh Government is watching this “very carefully”.
But Dr Atherton said he was starting to see “some improvements” in areas placed under local lockdown restrictions.
“I believe that we can improve our chances of removing those local lockdown arrangements, those restrictions, and buying ourselves some headroom so we can get through the winter,” he said.
PHW’s figures showed Merthyr Tydfil currently has the highest rate of infections in Wales with 200.6 cases per 100,000 people based on a rolling seven-day average, up from 180.7 on Tuesday.
Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) closely follows this figure at 178.2 per 100,000 of population, up from 170.8 the day before.
The other local authority areas recording more than 100 cases per 100,000 included Swansea with 130.8, Wrexham with 126.5, Flintshire with 125.6, Bridgend with 123.8, Cardiff with 120.2 and Blaenau Gwent with 108.8.
Every single local authority had an increase in cases per 100,000 population.
The all-Wales overall infection rate is 92.6 per 100,000, which is a significant rise on the 81.9 recorded the day before.
Cardiff reported the highest number of new cases yesterday with 108, followed by RCT with 93, Swansea with 76, Flintshire with 54, Wrexham with 41, Bridgend with 33, Neath Port Talbot with 29, Caerphilly with 25, Merthyr Tydfil and Vale of Glamorgan with 23 and Carmarthenshire with 22.
Other local authorities recording double figures included Denbighshire with 17, Blaenau Gwent and Newport with 15, Torfaen and Ceredigion with 13 and Conwy with 10.
Powys had eight, Monmouthshire, Pembrokeshire and Gwynedd had seven and Anglesey had four.
There were 91 cases from people outside Wales included in the figures, which Public Health Wales said referred to mainly young people with Welsh home addresses but who were currently living outside Wales.