Restrictions should have gone further – top doctor
A TOP doctor in Wales has said he would have liked to have seen stricter coronavirus restrictions imposed by the First Minister following his announcement on Thursday night.
Dr David Bailey, the chairman of the British Medical Association in Wales, said whilst the Omicron variant appears to be “less severe”, it is “dramatically more transmissible”, and warned that the sheer number of infections will impact “severely” on all routine health care.
Mark Drakeford announced that new legal restrictions to slow the spread of Omicron will come into force on December 27.
The Welsh Government’s cabinet has met a number of times this week and twice on Thursday to look at the latest data and decide restrictions for the festive period.
The cabinet has stopped short of introducing any restrictions which would limit people meeting over the festive period.
It has also decided against any restrictions on travel but the First Minister has advised people to have a smaller Christmas.
In a statement issued on Thursday night, Mr Drakeford said: “This year a smaller Christmas is a safer Christmas. The fewer people we see, the less chance we have of catching or passing on the virus.”
He urged people to get vaccinated, take lateral flow tests before going shopping or visiting people, to meet outdoors wherever possible, spread out social events with at least a day between them and to social distance, wash hands and wear a mask.
However, from December 27, there will be tougher rules. Nightclubs will have to close from that point.
A 2m rule on social distancing in offices will come in and there will be extra measures to protect customers and staff, such as one-way systems and physical barriers will become a requirement.
Yesterday morning, Mr Drakeford revealed that ministers are considering going even further when they meet on Monday and bringing back the “rule of six” governing how many people can meet in venues. Curbs on the number of people at large events like sports matches are also being considered.
Speaking on BBC Radio Wales yesterday morning, Dr David Bailey admitted he thinks the restrictions confirmed for December 27 are “not quite far enough” from a public health point of view and “would have liked to have seen it gone a bit further”.
However he acknowledged that from a “political and psychological perspective”, the First Minister is “doing as much as he can”.
“He’s walking a tightrope and probably this is as much as he felt he could reasonably do – considering people’s mental health, considering Christmas coming up,” he said.
Dr Bailey believes if it had been a different period of the year, the Welsh Government “could and would” have gone further with their restrictions.
“Logistically of course, if you could choose two weeks to put a really rapid roll-out, these would be the last two weeks on earth that you would choose, with the bank holiday, weekends, the fact that lots of people are already on holiday, a lot of people are concerned they’re going to be getting side effects before Christmas and are a little bit reluctant – that’s what we’re hearing,” he said.
But he said the country needs to “buy as much time as we reasonably can so we can get the vaccine roll-out”, as it’s clear the third booster jab provides a significant amount of protection against Omicron, which is “dramatically more transmissible” than Delta.
“Any medic will tell you that probably this is the least far you can go – and in terms of trying to delay the Omicron wave, we could have gone a bit further, and had we have done so, it would delay things a bit more. I think ideally we would’ve liked to have seen that,” he said.
“I think there is a balance for politicians and we don’t know exactly how severe the new Omicron is going to be – what we do know is it’s dramatically more transmissible, so buying a few extra days would certainly help.”
Asked if he fears the new restrictions won’t help mitigate the impact of the Omicron variant on the already overwhelmed NHS, he warned of the “sheer number” of infections to come.
“Whilst [Omicron] looks like it’s less severe, it’s dramatically more transmissible,” he said.
“It’s just the sheer numbers – even if the numbers of people getting seriously ill are lower, with the sheer numbers we’ve got a real concern that it is going to impact severely on all of the routine care that we try and provide.”