Covid: Wales at start of third coronavirus wave, warns first minister

A third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is already under way leaving Wales facing a "serious public health situation", the first minister said.

Mark Drakeford said Wales may be two or three weeks behind England and Scotland in terms of rising case numbers.

He confirmed a decision to pause making major relaxations to coronavirus rules for four weeks.

Officials plan to offer a further 500,000 jabs during that time, which will largely be second doses.

Ministers had considered easing rules to allow more to meet indoors in private homes.

However Mr Drakeford is making small changes to wedding rules, allowing venues to host as many people as they can within their space, according to a risk assessment.

The first minister said the Delta variant - originally found in India - is "taking hold" in Wales.

He said the "job" of the next few weeks will be "to do everything we can to prevent" having to impose lockdown rules again.

There had been a "sustained, week-on-week increase" in the rate of Covid-19 across the country due to the Delta variant, Mr Drakeford told a press conference, with a "particularly sharp rise" in people aged under 25.

Wales' Covid infection rate on Friday is 23.6 per 100,000 of the population, compared to 10 a fortnight ago and the first minister said the pattern was being driven by the more transmissible Delta variant.

Meanwhile, the rate of tests coming back positive has more than doubled to 2.4%.

"Our scientific advisers believe the UK is now in the pre-peak stage of a third wave of the pandemic," he said.

"Wales may be two to three weeks behind what is happening in England and in Scotland, where tens of thousands of cases have been confirmed, there is widespread transmission and reports of increased hospital admissions as well."

Mr Drakeford's decision to delay moving to Wales' lowest levels of coronavirus rules follows decisions taken in Scotland and England to hold off their plans to ease restrictions - both in response to rising cases driven by the Delta variant.

He said that Wales was currently "nowhere near" needing to impose stricter Covid lockdown rules again in response to concerns about rising transmission.

The first minister said the Welsh government was "pausing" the relaxation of restrictions "because we don't want to add fresh risk in to what has become a more risky context".

He said officials were "not clear" about "the full extent to which vaccination has altered the link between falling ill with coronavirus and needing hospital treatment".

"The more people we can vaccinate the stronger the defence will be and the more certain we will become that we don't need to put anything in reverse and indeed will be able to move even further forward," added Mr Drakeford.