Talks being held between devolved nations over relaxed Christmas rules amid calls for them to be reversed

Ministers from the devolved administrations will meet with UK cabinet office minister Michael Gove this afternoon to discuss next week’s relaxation of coronavirus rules over Christmas.

Wales’ first minister Mark Drakeford said in the Senedd earlier today, the four nation agreement to relax rules between 23 and 27 December – allowing families to “bubble” with two other households – “was a hard one agreement, that he “will not lightly put it aside.”

He told Welsh parliament members, “I have a meeting later today with the First Minister of Scotland, first and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and Michael Gove, the minister in charge of the Cabinet Office.

“No doubt this issue will be discussed again there.”

“The choices are grim, I have read in my own email account over the last couple of days heart rendering pleas from people not to reverse what we have agreed for Christmas.”

“People who live entirely alone, who have made arrangements to be with people for the first time in many months and who say to me that this is the only thing that they have been able to look forward to in recent weeks.”

“Today, we will look at the figures again together, I still think that the arguments for having a rule based approach to Christmas, modestly increased amounts of freedom for people but where they know where the rules lie, is preferable.”

Calls have been made today by UK medical journals for Christmas COVID-19 rules to be reversed across the nation.

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) and Health Service Journal (HSJ) published a joint article stating their disapproval of the UK Government’s “rash” decision to allow household mixing over the Christmas period.

They say the tier system currently in place should be extended over the five-day Christmas period in order to reduce numbers before the “likely” third wave of COVID-19.

“It should also review and strengthen the tier structure, which has failed to suppress rates of infection and hospitalisation,” wrote Alastair McLellan (HSJ) and Fiona Godlee (BMJ).

For Wales, a number of key findings were published by Public Health Wales following the results of their latest ‘How Are We Doing in Wales’ public engagement survey.

They are: 

• 66% of people said they are planning to either have visitors to their home or visit other people’s homes over the Christmas period (23rd-27thDecember).
• 45% of people said they are intending to form a Christmas bubble.
• 53% of people think the changes being made to restrictions over Christmas are about right; 31% would prefer tighter restrictions and 15% would prefer more relaxed restrictions.
• 39% of people said they are following the restrictions ‘completely’.
• 52% of people have been worrying ‘a little’ or ‘a lot’ about their mental health and wellbeing (down from 60% in the last survey week).
• 68% of people said they would want a coronavirus vaccination if one was available.

Wales’ Health Minister, Vaughan Gething, has said “nothing is off the table” if changes need to be made to coronavirus restrictions and household mixing over Christmas.

Last week, there were 14,000 new cases of the virus in Wales with one in five tests carried out coming back positive.

If cases in Wales continue at the same rate then a lockdown could be introduced immediately after Christmas, it was indicated by the Welsh Gov.

In terms of whether that lockdown could be brought back a few weeks before Christmas, Mr Gething said: “Every option is still available to us. I had a meeting with local stakeholders across Wales about a range of challenges in different regions.

“The cabinet meets as usual on a Monday in our new virtual form and we’ll continue to have those discussions and we will continue to hear evidence from the chief medical officer and from scientific advisors.

“We will also take evidence from the chief executive NHS Wales about the reality of service pressures, and we’ll then have to make balanced choices because in many ways it’s much easier to demand action of the government when of course, as I said, it wasn’t that long ago when people were criticising the government for taking action.

“We then have to think about the real world impact in terms of both lives and livelihoods too.

“So, these are not straightforward choices but we will live up to our responsibility to consider the evidence and whether we act or not, the government will be responsible for those choices.

“We’re asking people across Wales to be responsible for choices that they take and how they live their day to day lives because each of us needs to be part of this, each of us needs to help to get the whole of Wales through to a different and a better future that we can see with a vaccine likely become more widely available as we move into 2021.”

The latest measures regarding the new four tier plan were published recently, with them starting at ‘low risk’ and moving up to ‘medium’, ‘high’ and ‘very high risk’ and are based on advice from the UK Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE).

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By Jordan Adams