Wales won’t lift all restrictions on June 21, ‘even if England does’, Drakeford confirms

Mark Drakeford has confirmed that all restrictions won’t be lifted in Wales on June 21, even if they are in England.

The First Minister argued it would be “too risky” to open up fully, and that it won’t happen until everybody received at least the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

He said that this would give the “maximum protection against any new dangers” because there have a number of “unpleasant surprises” with the virus.

The UK Government is hoping to be able to lift all restrictions in England on June 21. But that has been thrown into doubt amid fears about the rising number of cases, and the spread of the highly transmissible Delta (formerly Indian) variant.

Mark Drakeford told Good Morning Britain: “Were England to lift all restrictions on the 21^st of June, that will not be the case in Wales.

“Life in Wales will be very significantly back to as it was before, but there still will be some things which we think are too risky and we we’ll not be allowing those until we’re more certain that we’ve got everybody vaccinated at least with the first dose and as many people as possible with the second dose, so that we have the maximum protection against any new dangers that this virus that has had many many unpleasant surprises up its sleeve, that we’re as confident as we can be that we’ve built those protections as high as possible.”

Though Wales won’t be unlocking fully Welsh Government ministers will be reviewing the public health situation again, ahead of June 21, to determine whether indoor events can restart.

It was decided to delay the move to allow them as a result of concerns about the spread of this more transmissable variant. However, outdoor events will begin on Monday in what the First Minister has called a “phased” move to Alert Level 1.

This comes as 97 cases of what is now known as the Delta variant have been discovered in Wales, with 39 just cases in the last week, including a cluster in Conwy.