Adam Price: The cusp of what may turn out to be a global pandemic is obviously not a time when anyone would want to be contemplating closing facilities within the NHS. Five weeks ago, when asked if you would intervene to keep accident and emergency services at Royal Glamorgan Hospital, you said we're not remotely at that point yet. In the next two weeks, the health board will make a final decision. Have...
Adam Price: May I start by extending my sincere sympathies to those who have lost family members and friends over the past few weeks, and extend my best wishes to those who are ill at the moment, and thank everybody who is caring for us all during this very difficult period? May I also thank you, First Minister, for extending the invitation to me to join the national COVID group that you made reference...
Adam Price: If I could start by asking some questions around testing? Can the First Minister confirm that—the company involved in the deal that collapsed recently, Roche—contrary to what that company, at least, is claiming, there was a confirmed written agreement with the Welsh Government to deliver 5,000 tests a day? Is it your understanding that the catalyst for the deal collapsing may have been a...
Adam Price: Whenever something is clouded in secrecy, obviously that makes scrutiny and accountability more difficult and it also erodes, I think, public trust if you don’t get full transparency. So, given that the Government chose to tell us about the deal collapsing with this supplier, can I just ask the First Minister, again, if you're prepared to confirm if the company is Roche, and if it isn't...
Adam Price: I'm grateful to the First Minister for confirming the identity of the company involved in the collapsed deal. I was wondering, Minister, if you'd respond to the statement, therefore, that Roche put out last night that it does not have and has never had a contract or agreement directly with Wales to supply testing for COVID-19. Is it your view, therefore, that that statement isn't true, they...
Adam Price: May I endorse what the First Minister said and extend our best wishes to the UK Prime Minister, and to everyone else who is unwell at the moment? I hope that Alun Davies also makes a speedy recovery. May I also thank you, First Minister, for the opportunity to be briefed this morning by the lead officials leading the response to this crisis?
Adam Price: If we turn to PPE, you recognised, First Minister, that PPE is, obviously, a concern. The Royal College of Nursing say that they have repeatedly asked the Welsh Government to share the distribution schedule for PPE so that they can reassure their members. Can you give a commitment today that that will now happen? And can you say by what date all of the front-line staff that you have...
Adam Price: Just on the issue of contact tracing, testing and tracing, where there is, obviously, a range of views and a difference of opinion amongst scientists, epidemiologists and public health experts, given that the demographics of Wales are different—and, indeed, Ministers have referred to this—would it be possible for the Welsh Government to commission its own independent modelling, or ask...
Adam Price: I'd like to ask you about testing, First Minister. In England, two mega laboratories that have the capacity to conduct tens of thousands of tests per day are already operational, and a third one is going to be added in England soon. Scotland will have a mega lab by the end of this week. And, as set out in the UK Government's testing plan, Northern Ireland already has established a major...
Adam Price: First Minister, how can you say that we have the necessary capacity when you've missed your own targets on tests three times in three weeks and now you've scrapped them? Let's talk about the capacity for testing within Wales. It's almost six weeks since scientists at Cardiff University wrote to Welsh Government offering their expertise in conducting tests here in Wales. Almost six weeks...
Adam Price: First Minister, the leader of your party has said we're possibly on track to have one of the worst death rates in Europe. Now, he was referring to the UK of course, but the same is, sadly, true for Wales. Why have we done so badly compared to so many other countries?
Adam Price: Can I ask about PPE? Will you publish formal medical advice from the chief medical officer on the use of protection, facial protection, by the public? And did you act on the recommendations of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies sub-committee, when it proposed that face visors and eye goggles were added to the pandemic...
Adam Price: Yesterday, First Minister, you published figures that show that there were 1,239 deaths registered in care homes in April in Wales compared to 417 for the same month last year—an increase of 200 per cent. Now, you just said, in terms of care homes where there hasn't been a confirmed or suspected outbreak, that clinical advice wasn't in favour of testing residents in that case. But you are...
Adam Price: First Minister, if there is, potentially, scientific evidence that suggests that testing in a care home with 50 residents, without an outbreak, has clinical value, how is it possible that testing in a care home with 49 doesn't? Isn't that an entirely arbitrary threshold?
Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd. Before turning to my question, I would like to make a point of order at the end of the statement, if you would allow that, on the fact that the Government shared its strategy on testing and contact tracing exactly eight minutes before the beginning of this scrutiny session without briefing the opposition parties beforehand, as was promised to me this morning.
Adam Price: Two weeks ago, First Minister, when asked by Channel 4's Andy Davies at the daily press conference if the Welsh Government had gowns in its pandemic stockpile when coronavirus reached the UK, the health Minister confirmed that to be the case. Was that in fact correct?
Adam Price: First Minister, you wrote to me last week in response to a letter I wrote to you, confirming that there were, in fact, contrary to what the health Minister claimed, no gowns in the pandemic stockpile between June 2016 and February 2020. Now, in June last year, the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group, the committee that advises the UK Government on the pandemic stockpile,...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. Earlier today, the Government published 'Test Trace Protect', probably, actually, one of the most important documents it's published so far as part of its policy around the virus. It was published at 13:22, so Members will not have had the opportunity, obviously, to study the document—eight pages long—in the depth that it requires. This will be our only opportunity today...
Adam Price: First Minister, on 20 March, the Royal College of Surgeons recommended that anosmia, the loss of a sense of smell, should be added to the list of COVID-19 symptoms, and that was discussed by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies on 24 March. A paper for SAGE on 16 April confirmed that the loss of smell and taste was a strong predictor of infection. Why did it take until Monday of...
Adam Price: I think it's important to place on the record that clinicians have criticised that length of delay—two months since the Royal College of Surgeons made the case in the first instance. Speed of decision making will no doubt be one of the key questions that a retrospective inquiry will want to look at, as the health Minister has already alluded to this week. You previously said you don't want...
