COVID-19 in Merthyr Tydfil

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:31 pm on 10 November 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:31, 10 November 2020

Llywydd, I thank Dawn Bowden for that, and thanks to her for everything I know she is doing, as are other colleagues, to get that message across to people in different communities in Wales that, while we all feel a relief at the end of the firebreak period, it's how we behave in these next two weeks that will be absolutely crucial. And if people turn a sense of relief into a sense of not doing the things that we all need to do, then we will simply lose all the benefits that we have achieved together through the way in which the firebreak period in Wales was observed. So, I thank her very much for everything she is doing to reinforce that message. 

I'm happy to confirm again that there is a planning team in place. It's led by Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board. It's with the local authority, and its purpose is to plan for whole-borough testing in Merthyr. That team will be joined by three military planners on Thursday of this week. They will be individuals who have direct experience of what has been happening in Liverpool, and they'll bring all of that to that planning group. But it is still planning, and it's planning not simply for the testing, but as Dawn Bowden has said, for the aftermath of that testing, because when you find many, many more people who have tested positive, you need teams in the test, trace and protect system then to follow them up and make sure that they are properly advised. All of that needs to be in place in order to make sure that people in Merthyr, if that is where we have the first whole-town testing in Wales, get the service that they need. That's what that planning is designed to achieve.