There has been surprise that Wales has not followed Scotland's lead in extending rules around the wearing of face masks because of rising numbers of coronavirus.
Earlier this month, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that Scotland's rules on face coverings in shops and on public transport will remain in place until April. Many thought this would be the case in Wales, but First Minister Mark Drakeford has announced Wales will end mask wearing in shops and on public transport as well as the requirement to self-isolate after Covid-19 infection from Monday, March 28.
It means that only two key legal protections rules will remain in place in Wales from next week:
- face coverings will remain a legal requirement in health and social care settings
- coronavirus risk assessments must continue to be carried out by businesses, with reasonable measures put in place.
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Explaining the decision to lift some of the key restrictions on face masks, Mr Drakeford said on Friday: "We do in the end have to find a way of living safely with coronavirus. We had hoped, as you know, to have lifted all legal restrictions on Monday of next week, we're not we're not able to do that, in the light of the numbers that we're currently seeing.
"So we continue our step by step approach to dealing with the virus, lifting some of the legal restrictions on Monday, but having to keep others in place. So it's a proportionate approach, while staying on the journey to finding a way of living safely with the virus."
The First Minister said that the weekly modelling they are given has shown that cases are expected to rise in the next couple of weeks before stablising, and he said that while the number of people in hospital with coronavirus has risen, intensive care numbers have remained stable over the past 10 days.
"What the cabinet decided on Thursday was on the basis of scientific advice we had from our Chief Medical Officer and scientific advisors, that we couldn't do what we had originally planned with everything on Monday," he said. "We decided we should keep those measures that had the biggest impact. We have to get to the point where we find ways where we are continuing to behave together in a way that protects one another without always relying on the force of the law."
Mr Drakeford added that lateral flow tests would remain to be available in Wales after the end of his month when free PCR and lateral flow tests end in England on April 1.
He said: "We are trying to strike the best balance we can between keeping people in Wales safe, but also allowing Welsh society to return to a position where we are able to deal with coronavirus as one of the range of things that we have to deal with in keeping ourselves healthy and well."
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