Coronavirus

Part of 2. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 1:39 pm on 6 May 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 1:39, 6 May 2020

Thank you for the statement and the series of questions within it. I think it's important to go back to what this leaked draft document is, and it's not a final plan for Wales, it's the basis of a discussion between partners. Because Public Health Wales, as the draft has been leaked, have had to engage in a wider conversation with partners in the health service—so, health boards and other trusts—as well of course as local authorities and others. So, those partners, together with the Government, are working through the document with Public Health Wales. Feedback is coming in from that, and we will then get to a point over the next week or so where there will be a confirmed national plan. I set out the high-level elements of that yesterday, and the main points of principle will remain consistent, but the operational plan will set out and fill in more of the detail on numbers—so, the model of contact tracing we think we're going to adopt, the point at which that tracing will take place, what that means in terms of the capacity we need, where we'll get that capacity for contact tracing from. And local authorities have been really helpful in those discussions, in developing something to get more operational and looking at the resources they've already got.

And then, of course, the point about testing—now, the capacity for that is not something that is certain at this point in time. We'll have more certainty when I have a finalised plan, and, when we do so, I'll obviously make a statement, and I'll be ready to answer questions, not just from the press, but from Members of this Parliament as well. So, we'll expect to see further progress on testing, because, as I have said on a number of occasions, we know we need a larger testing infrastructure to move to the test, track, trace programme. But it's the point and purpose of that testing. And the reason why I mention 9,000 tests is that, when Scotland announced their plan, they indicated that, for Scotland—and Wales has a population of just under 60 per cent of the population of Scotland—they thought they'd need 15,500 tests. If the early draft figures in the document that's been leaked were the ones we're aiming for in Wales, that would mean that Scotland would need nearly treble the number of tests they've announced, and England would need testing capacity of over 600,000. So, the approximation that I gave was that, if we were doing the same thing on the same basis as Scotland, that would end up being a figure of 9,000.

When we get a final plan, with final figures, I will of course be publishing that, making that available to all members of the public, and I fully expect to answer questions before this Parliament on that as well.