Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:29 pm on 20 October 2020.
Llywydd, diolch yn fawr. Thank you to everyone who has taken part in the debate. I want to return us to where this debate began. What we are talking about here this afternoon is nothing less than a public health emergency in Wales, and we're talking about the most effective way in which we can respond to it. In opening the debate, the health Minister set out the seriousness of the position, the latest information on incidence rates, positivity levels and hospital admissions, and he also rehearsed the advice that Ministers have received from the most senior clinical and scientific advisers available to us.
We've heard, Llywydd, that there are Members here who take a different view. Well, I profoundly disagree with them. But at least some Members here are explicit in that opposition. Neil Hamilton dismissed the seriousness of coronavirus—a mild illness, he said. He claimed that scientists—that mathematicians are not scientists. He waved his hand away at the 2,500 people who have died in Wales from coronavirus, while urging the Government to have a sense of proportion. Alun Davies said that there is a lot of nonsense talked by some about coronavirus, but it's not just nonsense—it's dangerous nonsense. We heard it again, sadly, here in the Senedd this afternoon.
Others, Llywydd, are less straightforward but no less misguided.