Coronavirus: Wales could start to ease lockdown in May

Measures could be lifted ‘like a traffic light in reverse,’ first minister says

Wales could ease some of its coronavirus lockdown restrictions at the end of the current three-week period in May.

The first minister, Mark Drakeford, said the measures could be eased in three phases “like a traffic light in reverse”.

During the red phase, only “the most careful and controlled lifting of restrictions” would take place, he told BBC Radio Wales on Friday.

More restrictions would be lifted in the amber phase, which could then be moved to the green zone if results were positive.

Mr Drakeford said the final period “would look much more like the lives we had before the crisis hit”.

When he was asked when Wales might enter the red zone, the first minister said: “I hope we will be in a position to do that at the end of the current three-week lockdown period.”

“Hospital admissions [would have to be] falling consistently for 14 days. They have been falling over the last week so it’s not impossible that we will get to that point and in that case, we can move into the red zone.”

However, Mr Drakeford said easing restrictions would only happen if Wales met the requirements of seven key questions he is set to announce later on Friday.

The seven questions are understood to include whether easing would have an effect on the spread of the disease; if there would be a low risk of infection; and whether any relaxed restrictions could be enforced.

Other questions focus on whether easing restrictions could be reversed if needed and whether there would be a positive impact on the economy, as wellbeing and equality.

It comes as Matt Hancock said easing the UK’s lockdown depended on the speed at which the number of new Covid-19 cases falls, a factor he said is as yet “unknown”.

The number of new cases is being tracked through hospital admissions, a new testing study in the community announced on Wednesday, and data that will be gathered from people coming forward for tests under an expansion of the testing programme, Mr Hancock said.

However, he suggested there is no prospect of easing the lockdown yet, and that coronavirus cases need to drop substantially before the next phase of isolating infected people and their contacts can be truly effective.

“Now that we’re at the peak, and we very much hope that things will start to slow down ... When they do, then the speed in which the number of new cases reduces will frankly determine how long we need to keep the measures on,” Mr Hancock told Radio 4’s Today programme.

He said it was not quite the case that mass testing and contact tracing needed to be in place before the current restrictions are eased, but said contact tracing worked better when the number of infections was pushed right down.

“The truth is that we need to get the number of new cases down, right down, and the lower you go, the more effective contact tracing is because the more resources you can put into each individual case that gets a positive test.

“You can really make sure you can get hold of all of their contacts and get them, in many cases, to self-isolate.

“The smaller the number of new cases, the more effective the test, track and trace system will be.”

Social distancing was driving down the numbers, Mr Hancock said, adding that the contact tracing operation would be functioning in a “matter of weeks”. He said mass testing, contact tracing and a new contact tracing app “are so crucial to holding down the rate and level of transmission of the disease”.