Two years on from the first pandemic, and Wales is still living with restrictions due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Granted, they are a fraction of those we have endured, but some stay in place.
The latest three-weekly Welsh Government review will take place this coming week. While the First Minister usually takes a press conference on the Friday of review week, we understand that due to the Bank Holiday no press conference will take place, but an announcement will come on Thursday, April 14, about what, if any, rules will change.
What are the current rules in Wales?
Wales is currently at alert level zero, the current rules mean you have to wear face coverings only in health and care settings and that workplaces and places open to the public have to do a coronavirus assessement.
What could change?
The Welsh Government say "if the current public health situation remains stable, all remaining restrictions will be removed".
What is the public health situation?
Well, it's not very simple to know because the changes around testing means data is not be available in the same way. PCR testing sites began to be closed down in Wales from March 31 and the tests are not available to the general public so the data is very limited.
However, if you look at the data we can pull together from different sources, Covid rates are higher than ever. The most reliable source regarding the spread of Covid is now the Office for National Statistic's weekly survey which shows that in the most recent week, the rate of infection hit a new peak with more than 7.5% of the population infected.
But there is good news, despite the rapid and increasing spread of Covid, hospitalisations and deaths are not rising. There are significant numbers of people in hospital with the virus, which is causing huge pressure on the system. But the number actually being treated for the virus in acute hospitals, as opposed to Covid patients being treated for another condition, has been below 100 for most of the last week with 17 of these patients seriously ill in intensive care.
We have also had recent warnings from the First Minister and health minister that the health service is under strain because staff are among those infected or off isolating, so staffing pressures remain high in the NHS. We've seen that reflected with hospital trusts telling people not to go to hospital unless it is absolutely necessary.
We've taken a detailed look at all the latest data here and you can see from a council by council breakdown that some areas are recording really high rates, the highest in the most recently available data in Blaenau Gwent.
So will the rules change?
It's recess in the political world with neither Westminster or the Senedd sitting for the Easter break so the mood music is a little harder to gauge. The case rates will cause really serious concern for the Welsh Government cabinet when it meets this week ahead of making any decision.
As with every review, we'll be told that the ministers will meet with scientists and consider the latest data and make any changes as late as possible to take everything into account. The First Minister had suggested that at the last review, which took place three weeks ago, that all restrictions could be lifted, however the rise in case rates led him to keep some measures in place because the BA.2 variant was causing concern.
"Unfortunately, today, we are facing a very different situation," he had said. "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."
At the last press conference, Mr Drakeford did sound more optimistic that we've seen the back of any lockdowns though. Responding to questions from the media Mr Drakeford said: "I think it is unlikely that we will need to return to the level of protections that we have seen in previous winters, largely because as I've said, we now have the protection, that vaccination offers."
"The JCVI was meeting again yesterday to plan ahead for the way in which vaccination will continue to be part of our defence against the virus, there are new treatments becoming available, antivirals and so on that will change the way in which we can deal with this virus."
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