Public Health

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:11 pm on 4 November 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:11, 4 November 2020

I thank the Member. That's a really important point. The effectiveness of our 'stay at home' message is really important, but we have balanced that by saying we positively want people to be able to exercise and to exercise safely. And we've seen that it is possible to go for a walk, to go for a cycle and to do that with your own household at this particular point in time. And we want to see that continue, because you make a fair point: with each decade that we add to our lives, we become more vulnerable to harm from coronavirus. And so maintaining and being as physically healthy as possible is important in terms of the potential response to the virus, but also it's hugely important for mental health and well-being. And more generally, there's work that we're continuing to do on our Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales programme, rediscovering and reimagining our latest options with diet, but with exercise too, and how we make it a normal thing that is easy for people to undertake with normal activity, so that we build back into our lives. And that is work that both ministerial colleagues Dafydd Elis-Thomas and now Eluned Morgan will be leading on, and I think the importance of that work will have been highlighted, not diminished, by the reality of the COVID pandemic. But a very useful and I think important intervention from David Melding about reminding us of the benefits of exercise.