‘England is the global outlier’ on Covid restrictions – not Wales – says Mark Drakeford
England is the global outlier on Covid-19 restrictions, not Wales, the First Minister has said.
Mark Drakeford was asked at today’s press conference why Wales was continuing with restrictions while Prime Minister Boris Johnson in England had decided not to introduce them.
The First Minister has confirmed that current restrictions will stay in place in Wales for at least another week, despite the Omicron variant not being “as severe as feared”.
Asked why he wasn’t falling into line with England, he said: “I would put the question in the opposite way. The outlier here is not Wales.
“Wales is taking action as are countries might across Europe, and the globe. The one country that stands out is England. The question is not why is Wales not following England, but why is England such a global outlier in governments protecting their populations.
“Here in Wales, we have a government that is capable to act and determined to do so when necessary, in England we have a government that is politically polarised. The Prime Minister can’t take the action his advisors have told him to take.
“Even if he could get his Cabinet to agree with them, he couldn’t get them past his MPs.”
He said that it was “easy to see” that other parts of the world were going “far beyond” the measures Wales was taking.
“The Prime Minister has decided to ‘ride it out’ as he has said, as he doesn’t have any other political options,” he added. “The advice shows consistently that an enormous wave of Omicron is coming your way, and here are the actions that could be taken.
“In the end, it is politicians that must decide on the advice that they are given. But there is no doubt that the advice the UK Government has had is one that asked them to take action rather than sit back and just allow things to happen.”
Mark Drakeford also suggested that he could not take restrictions any further because he needed financial support from the UK Treasury.
“Despite repeated efforts to get the UK Government to act in that responsible way – by ourselves and Scotland and Northern Ireland – we have not had the answer we thought we were entitled to expect,” he said.
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I pay tribute to Mark Drakeford for his courageous work and for not giving in to the Covid-sceptics. He is putting people’s safety first. A true leader!
But he is not putting mental health or the economy anywhere, and why do so many want a Corbyn/ Momentum supporter in charge ?
Why do so many want Boris the Liar in charge? He is completely useless, incompetent and totally self-serving. You may not agree with Drakeford’s policies but he is at least doing it for the right reasons,unlike the Dullard of Downing Street.
Nice lies there mate.They are the only country in Europe doing absolutely nothing to protect their own people because they have such such a weak leadership that they can’t get their cabinet to agree on anything because they are too terrified of their far right backbenchers. Plus the English won’t listen to him anymore after they broke their own rules and showed everyone that its us vs them. They are in the wrong, not the rest of the planet.
No lies here. The financial times tracker (linked below) says Wales has the worst case rate of those 6 nations, & England has the best.
I hate the English government too, but facts are facts.
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=e92000001&areas=s92000003&areas=w92000004&areas=n92000002&areas=irl&areas=fra&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnh&areasRegional=uspr&areasRegional=usdc&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=usmi&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2021-12-25&values=cases
As Omicron rampages through England, what I find amazing is how Boris Johnson is playing good cop bad cop by reminding all to be cautious and to only use the English NHS as a last resort due to it being overstretched, and on the other hand has removing all Covid restrictions in England causing their NHS the dire issues it currently faces. And it’s now obvious that Boris Johnson with pressure from his backbenchers & ERG Far-Right wing is using herd immunity in England. He did similar during the first wave of Covid-19 when he sent aged Covid patients from… Read more »
It was the winter of 2017-18 – the last bad flu season when more than 300 people a day were dying from that virus at one point.
Typical English exceptionalism – they don’t even realise they are one of the only countries to just ignore the problem and put the economy before people’s lives. Sad for England really, it looks so foolish in doing so.
Suggest you read this then look at why Mark is locking you down.
There’s no getting around it, I’m no Labour voter or even a particular fan of Drakeford really but on this occasion he is dead right – England is the outlier across the World not here and Europe. Why – money.
If the Welsh Government have never stopped mandating masks, and now have 2+ in restaurants, one-way in supermarkets, WFH, banned sport spectating and all the rest of it – why does England have far, far fewer cases per head of population?
Furthermore, what was the point of devolution if the line the Welsh government takes is “we’re following what everyone else is doing, so we must be on the right path”. Makes it all seem a bit pointless, no?