Questions now from party leaders. On behalf of the leader of Plaid Cymru, Rhun ap Iorwerth. 

Diolch yn fawr iawn. Can I place on record Plaid Cymru's gratitude to front-line workers in the health and care sector and elsewhere for their work at this challenging time? Can I also thank those who are working within their communities, setting up community groups and helping some of the most vulnerable people loving among us? They should be supported in that work. 

So, thank you very much.

Thank you, all. 

First Minister, Plaid Cymru supports the strengthened guidelines that were announced yesterday. We'd called for firmer measures; we'll work with you at these unprecedented times. But it is, of course, important that we continue to scrutinise the Welsh Government's approach. 

In that spirit, can you give clear guidance, firstly, on testing policy? Will you commit to follow the World Health's Organization's guidance on the importance of testing more in order to break the chains of infection, which it refers to as 'the backbone of the response'? And can you give concrete assurances to increase testing capacity with real urgency to ensure that key workers, in particular health and care workers, but also others offering vital public services, are able to avoid having to take time off work unnecessarily?  

Well, I thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for that, and thank you to him and to Adam Price for their participation in discussions on this yesterday. As far as testing policy is concerned, the advice that I have to follow is the advice provided to me by the Chief Medical Officer for Wales and those representatives from Wales who sit on the scientific advisory group. There are many different views, I understand that. There are many serious scientists who have nuanced views on testing policy. I cannot pick and choose between different views that are there in the mix on this matter. I have to rely on those people who are employed to provide the Welsh Government with the most expert advice they are able to provide, and who have a fine-grained understanding of the circumstances here in Wales. Their advice yesterday, it was the advice of other chief medical officers as well, is that this is not the point in the progress of the disease where using considerable resources for mass testing is the most effective way of putting safeguards in place. Other people may disagree, I understand that, but what I am saying is that I don't have a choice but to follow the advice of those people who we employ to advise us. If I move away from that, then the rock on which the advice that I provide to people in Wales and to the health service has been kicked away from under us, and I will not do that. Their advice is under development—the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization was talking about this matter again today—and if that advice changes in view of further evidence and further debate inside the expert community then, of course, we will follow that changing advice. But, as of yesterday, the advice was clear and I will follow that advice in Wales.

As far as key workers as concerned, I know that the Member will be aware that we are making an announcement today about testing key clinical workers in order to facilitate their return as rapidly as possible to the workplace. We will identify those groups of clinical workers who we are able to do that with immediately, and then there will be an increase in capacity so that we can bring more key workers within that testing regime. 

Diolch. I recognise certainly the role played by SAGE, but I would appeal for the recognition of particular Welsh demographic factors when it comes to measuring the need here in Wales.

So, perhaps one of big unanswered questions now. It looks increasingly likely that school closures is now a matter of 'when' not 'if'; for teachers and parents the question of 'when' obviously is very, very important. It would have been good to have a statement from the Minister for Education today, but in the absence of that and ahead of ministerial questions on education tomorrow, can I ask you to clarify a number of issues? Is it the working assumption now that schools will close sometime before the Easter break, or afterwards? Can you give statutory guidance in order to assist those who may be in a position to voluntarily keep their children away from school now, or who may feel compelled to do so, that these will not be recorded as absences? How will Welsh Government support pupils who receive free school meals? And crucially, when schools close, what provision will be made in school settings or elsewhere to enable key workers to continue to work? 

Well, Llywydd, largely because of those final two considerations, the position of the four UK Governments is that schools should remain open. I'm not going to anticipate when that advice might change because I don't think that is helpful to anybody. That advice remains under review at every meeting. The current position is clear: schools are remaining open in Wales, partly to make sure that key workers who otherwise would have to be diverted into caring for their own children are available to be in clinical settings; partly because a sudden decision to close schools would leave those many pupils who depend upon a free school breakfast and a free school meal vulnerable if schools were to remain closed over an extended period of time.

What I can provide the Member and other Members with an assurance of is this: we are using the time that we have now, while schools remain open in the way they are, to plan for the future. So, if we reach a point in the progress of this disease where closing schools becomes the right thing to do, we will have arrangements in place that will meet the needs of those children who rely on a meal in school for their general welfare, and that we will have attended to the needs of key workers. There are a number of other very important considerations in relation to schools and those are actively under consideration here in Wales and elsewhere. For now, schools remain open. That is the clear advice to parents. Unless your child has an underlying, medical condition that means they should be at home, schools are open and available to them.

Finally, as well as being a health risk, this is also developing into an extremely worrying time financially for individuals and businesses. One small business in my constituency has already reported revenue losses of £120,000—a small business—as a direct result of the virus. Another sees costs and losses mounting for his business to the extent that he can't see how he can afford to buy food for himself for much longer. Scotland has a COVID-19 helpline dedicated to business. Can we as a matter of urgency have one in Wales? We should be following the lead of President Macron, I think, who has promised that no business will go under because of COVID-19. I know you will be in agreement with me that UK Government should provide similar assurances, but if it delays, will you seek to act by, for example, asking for long-term borrowing powers, access to Treasury reserves? Businesses, the self-employed, workers in the gig economy, those on zero-hours contracts—there are many people feeling vulnerable or worse, and they now need more than ever to see firm and bold steps being taken by Welsh Government. 

I thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for those further questions. There is a dedicated helpline for businesses here in Wales; it is the Business Wales telephone helpline. We're using that helpline because it's already well known in the sector. There's no need to find something separate, new and different: use the Business Wales helpline. It is set up to respond to people in these circumstances. 

On the wider points, of course, I agree with the points that Rhun ap Iorwerth has made. The impact of coronavirus on our economy is absolutely enormous. The efforts that are needed to combat it to make sure that the economy remains solvent, that businesses that are viable today will still be viable after the crisis is over, and that individuals whose incomes are affected are provided with incomes now to see them through the crisis—all of those are very important points. All of them are covered in the letter that I sent earlier today to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in advance of what we are promised will be his statement later in the afternoon. This is classically the moment at which the levers that lie in the hands of the UK Government—fiscal levers as well as monetary levers—are used, and are used in a way that is commensurate with the scale of the challenge that we face. Nobody wants a business that is viable today and will be viable afterwards to go out of business during the crisis. Nobody wants a livelihood and a family that is thriving today not to be able to go on thriving the other side of coronavirus, and it is to the UK Government that we have to look to take the actions that will secure those futures.  

Leader of the opposition, Paul Davies. 

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, it's vitally important that we all put party politics to one side and work together in the public interest as the threat of coronavirus increases, and so can I thank you for the ongoing briefings and communication on this matter, and can I make it absolutely clear that my colleagues and I will do all that we can to work with the Government to tackle the spread of coronavirus in Wales? Can I also take this opportunity to thank front-line NHS staff for everything that they are doing and will do in the coming weeks and months to tackle this virus, and to keep us all safe? I'd also like to add my sincere condolences to the family and friends of the patient who died from COVID-19 in north Wales as well. 

Now, like many Members across this Chamber, I've received calls and correspondence from worried constituents, organisations and businesses about how they minimise the impact that the virus may have on their families and livelihoods, and some people are justifiably worried and genuinely frightened. I'm sure you're also aware of some of the unfortunate scenes in shops and supermarkets across the country, where shelves were bare and customers were unable to pick essential items. First Minister, it's critical that Governments at all levels do what they can to better reassure the public, but can you also tell us what steps the Welsh Government is taking to ensure that those people who are now self-isolating are able to get the essential items that they need on a regular basis? 

I thank Paul Davies for that. Can I too, Llywydd, extend my sympathy to the family and friends of the first person to die from coronavirus here in Wales? Can I thank him and Angela Burns as well for attending the meeting we had yesterday, but also for the opportunities I've had over the last couple of weeks to discuss the unfolding crisis with the leader of the opposition? I'm grateful for his thoughts and advice during those telephone calls. I completely agree with what he said. This is a crisis that we will get through by working together across parties and across administrations, and my aim is to do exactly that whenever we are able to do so.

Can I agree with him? Panic buying is not a solution to coronavirus. We have to urge our fellow citizens to think about the consequences of their actions. Any crisis brings out good and bad things in people, doesn't it? And there's been an enormous upswelling of generosity around coronavirus as well, with people volunteering to look after others, asking what they can do, wanting to find ways in which they can help to look after other people who are more vulnerable than themselves. So, we see all of that, and yet sometimes people act in that, sort of, group way: they see other people doing things, they think they must copy what they see other people doing, and we end up with a problem that need never have happened in the first place. 

Now, we are, to an extent, well-prepared for some of this because of the preparation that went on last year in the Brexit context. Had we left the European Union without a deal, then there would inevitably have been impacts on the supply of goods and services and we have reactivated the machinery that we had in those contexts to make sure that we're always well in-touch with the retail industry and the logistics industry, and my colleague Julie James issued a statement on this last week. The clear message from the sector is that provided people behave rationally, there is no shortage of food to go around.

There was then the second question that Paul Davies raised about how we make sure that help can be given to those people who will need to get food and other things because of the constraints on their own behaviour. I want to let him and other Members know that we are working closely with our local authority colleagues and our colleagues in the third sector here in Wales to make sure that we put a bit of a system around the offers of help that we know are there in Wales, so that people know where to go in order to access the help that can be made available to them. We will be meeting tomorrow with representatives of those sectors and with community councils as well. There are a series of organisations that have a part to play in making sure that help can be mobilised at that individual level. We'll be bringing people around the table, making sure that we're able to provide consistent and reliable advice to people in Wales as to how they can get that help with social circumstances while they're attending to the medical impact of the coronavirus. 

First Minister, as the number of cases of coronavirus continues to increase, so too does the demand for hospital treatment, and I know the Welsh Government has agreed a framework of actions so that the health service can start accelerating its decision making. That framework will hopefully allow for services and beds to be reallocated and for staff to be redeployed and retrained in particular priority areas.

At this stage, though, First Minister, can you specifically confirm the number of intensive care unit beds and high dependency beds Wales actually has in operation? Can you also tell us what immediate discussions are taking place to consider alternative options to increase bed capacity should Wales become overwhelmed with serious cases? How will the Welsh Government use any additional funding filtered down from the UK Government to help increase the number of beds available for people affected by the coronavirus?

Well, I thank Paul Davies. I want to give him the number of critical care beds that we have here in Wales, but I want to make sure I give it to him accurately. In my mind, the figure is 136, but I'll confirm that with him if I've not remembered that correctly. The health service already has, Llywydd, surge capacity, as it's called, for intensive care, to double that number of beds. That's part of the routine planning of the health service, but we know that even if you double the number we have, it will not meet the likely level of requirement. So, of course discussions are going on with our intensive care colleagues about alternative ways in which different sorts of decisions can be made to treat people who need that level of intervention. In other parts of the hospital, part of the reason for cancelling routine operations is that some of the equipment that you would need is often located in theatres and can be put to use in that way. But in the way that I think Paul Davies was suggesting, it's a cascade, really. In order to create more capacity at the most intense end, you have to free capacity up all through the system.

I'm very grateful to our colleagues in local government in Wales, who are doing some very important work to be able to free up capacity in the care home sector, so the people who are in hospital beds in Wales today, ready to leave—there's no medical reason for them to be there—there will be places for those people to go, so we create capacity in that way too. So, right through the system, we need to find ways of moving people down the hierarchy of intervention in order to create capacity at the place where it may be most needed for those with the most intense conditions.

First Minister, I've previously raised the impact that coronavirus could have on Wales's social care sector with you. As the threat of the virus increases, it's more important than ever that those providing care to people living in care homes have access to the latest guidance and advice available. You quite rightly said that Wales's social care sector is dominated by small owners of one or two residential care homes and that getting messages out to people is a bigger challenge when you have larger numbers of people involved and people who may not necessarily be as attuned to dealing with demands as large companies, who are well set up and equipped to do this.

There is also the issue of those who need home carers, and the risks of virus transmission to carers and their service users. Therefore, perhaps you can tell us a bit more about the dialogue that the Government is having with the social care sector and how effective you think the Government is at getting its messages out. Could you also provide some more information about the next stage of contingency planning that the Welsh Government has done to better safeguard those living in social care settings from coronavirus, and whether there is capacity within the system for local authorities to effectively manage an outbreak of the virus at this point in time? What additional resources and assistance is the Welsh Government providing the sector so that those living in social care settings can be confident that they are as protected as possible?

I thank Paul Davies. Those are all very important questions. He will know that, earlier this week, CIW—Care Inspectorate Wales—announced that it was pausing routine inspections in the social care field in order to make sure that front-line staff are able to concentrate on the job immediately at hand, and we are able to use the inspectorate, which has contacts right across the sector, to help us with the cascading of messages, as we are able to use Care Forum Wales. We're very grateful to the forum for the work that it is doing to make sure that key messages are made available, not just to big providers, but to the much wider number of small providers of residential care services.

The leader of the opposition makes a very important point about domiciliary care, and I can't answer questions this afternoon, Llywydd, and simply provide assurances that everything will be fine everywhere, because that is just not the reality of coronavirus. We already know that some other measures—the correct measures that have been agreed across the United Kingdom in terms of self-isolation—haven't had an impact on the workforce in domiciliary care, with fewer people turning up to do these important jobs. But we are in very direct conversation with the sector and with local authorities, and know that the sector is working hard to prioritise the calls it has to make with the available workforce that it has, and that is part of our ongoing conversation with local authorities, as is the help that we will be able to provide them.

I haven't mentioned this afternoon, as yet, Llywydd, the anticipated emergency Bill that we expect to see published on Thursday of this week. It will provide powers to Welsh Ministers that will lift some of the current regulatory requirements from the sector and allow them to respond to the crisis in a way that has greater flexibility than would otherwise be the case. We will look to make use of those powers here in Wales, in close consultation with the sector itself.

On behalf of the Brexit Party, Caroline Jones.

Diolch, Llywydd. We would also like to place on record our thanks to all staff in the NHS and beyond who are striving to work through this time, and I'd like to thank you, First Minister, for the briefings you are providing. You can be assured of our ongoing support. Also, we send our condolences to the family and friends of the person who has passed due to this virus. 

First Minister, the impact COVID-19 is having on society we are now beginning to see. My colleague Mark Reckless is in self-isolation due to developing symptoms consistent with the disease. So, in the meantime, if you put up with me asking leader's questions, I would be grateful. 

First Minister, we have a small window of opportunity to control the path of this disease that is wreaking havoc around the globe. The best course we can take is to follow the advice of medical experts, and I for one am comforted that the four nations of the UK are working together on our strategy, following the advice of epidemiologists. The advice to stay at home for 14 days if anyone in your household has symptoms is aimed at curbing the spread of this disease, which modelling predicts could be as much as 80 per cent of our population. While I accept that we simply don't have the resources to test everyone, and that widespread testing would divert vital resource away from assisting those at greatest risk, we do have to ensure we maintain testing for essential key workers. First Minister, we can't afford to have hundreds, possibly thousands, of key staff in self-isolation. Will you therefore commit to ensure that priority testing is carried out on family members and staff working in our hospitals, our care homes and our schools? Our prisons also, the police, fire and ambulance services. These people are vital to the functioning of our society, and we can't afford to lose them unless they have a confirmed exposure to SARS-CoV-2. 

I thank Caroline Jones for those questions, and thank her too for attending the meeting we held yesterday. Llywydd, I want, I'm sure on behalf of other Members, to pass our best wishes to our colleagues in all parties who find themselves caught up by the advice provided yesterday, and who aren't able to be with us in the Chamber this afternoon. As far as testing is concerned, as I said earlier, there will be advice today that will extend testing to key workers in clinical roles. As capacity develops, the plan will be to see whether there are further groups who can be added to that testing regime, but the reason for beginning with people in key clinical roles is the point that Caroline Jones made—that we need those people to be in work doing the vital things that only they can do, and if testing accelerates their return to the workplace in that way, then that's why that regime will be put in place. 

Thank you, First Minister. I'd like to stay with the idea of the issue of testing, if I may. The World Health Organization has said test, test, test, and I accept the rationale for not testing every case at this stage. But do you have a strategy for ramping up testing facilities in the coming months? This is a totally new virus of which we know very little, and the more data we can collect and collate, the more equipped we are to deal with it. Unfortunately, this virus is not going away anytime soon. We are still dealing with SARS nearly 20 years after it first emerged. A vaccine for COVID-19 would be another 18 months to two years away, so in the absence of a vaccine, we need to better understand the life-cycle of this virus, and for that we need accurate data on the numbers actually infected, the numbers infected who were asymptomatic, and sadly the mortality of the disease. Our future plans depend upon accurate testing. First Minister, is your Government planning on conducting wide-scale serologic testing once we're over the peak of this outbreak, and once the test being developed by Public Health England is available? Thank you.

Again, I thank Caroline Jones. She made a very important point, Llywydd, about the fact that our understanding of this disease is developing all the time, learning from experience in the world as well as experience domestically. And that's why I'm repeating—and I say it again this afternoon, Llywydd—that the approach we are taking as Governments across the United Kingdom is to try to make the right decision at the right time, because the timing of interventions is really important here, and strategies will alter at different times in the progress of the disease. Our strategy is the one that Caroline Jones set out at the start of her supplementary questions, which is to be guided by the advice of our chief medical officers and of the scientific group that deals with emergencies of this sort. Their current advice is the advice we are following today in Wales. If, as further information develops, as we learn more, their advice is that a different decision at a different point is necessary, of course we will follow that advice. I can't anticipate it, I don't know what that advice will be at different points, but I want people in Wales to know that what we will be doing will be to follow the best advice available to us, and then to implement it here.

Question 3 [OAQ55250] has been withdrawn. Question 4, Carwyn Jones.