4. What is the First Minister's current assessment of COVID-19 incidence in Wales? OQ56000

I thank John Griffiths. Llywydd, the incidence in Wales, represented by the seven-day rolling average, has been increasing each day for the last 18 days. Unless this trend can be halted and reversed, we will see an exponential growth in coronavirus right across Wales.

First Minister, it is a very worrying situation, and among the factors involved that make it very worrying is the increasing emergence of long COVID, which I believe the health service unfortunately may be dealing with for some years to come. Months after contracting the virus, sufferers are left with a range of symptoms, including breathlessness, brain fog, pain and fatigue. It is debilitating for many, and fears are growing that it could go on to affect hundreds of thousands across the UK. In England, they are opening specialist clinics to treat long COVID, and in Scotland they are funding rapid research projects and working up new treatment guidelines. First Minister, I would be grateful for your advice on Welsh Government action to address this significant threat to the health of our nation.

I thank John Griffiths for that important supplementary question, Llywydd. We have 1,100 people with confirmed coronavirus in Welsh hospital beds today. Over a quarter of them will need to be in hospital for three weeks or longer. This is a virus from which rapid recovery is not the outcome for many, many people who contract it, and not only does that mean that more and more people are retained in hospital beds, but that there is a long aftermath for many people. I know that John Griffiths will be aware that the health Minister published a written statement on this on 23 October. We published our national framework for rehabilitation from coronavirus in May of this year. Our focus is on trying to provide services for those people suffering the long-term effects of coronavirus as close to home as possible. It's not a model that relies upon people who are already unwell and suffering from those after-effects having to make their way into a hospital setting in order to get the treatment that they need. So, we are looking to have multidisciplinary teams that operate in the community and only where absolutely necessary from in-patient rehabilitation services. That's a different model to the one that's being adopted in some other places, but we think it will provide a better service to more people, more conveniently, and more attuned to the nature of the impact from coronavirus that they are suffering. 

In relation to clinical trials and research, then we are, ourselves, just as Scotland are, involved in a number of different studies. We're participating in the development by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence of a clinical definition of long COVID, which will help with its diagnosis and its care, and we're participating, Llywydd, in the UK post-hospitalisation COVID-19 study. That's a study funded by the National Institute for Health Research and the Medical Research Council at a UK level. It involves 10,000 participants and it's been described as a world-leading study in informing the developments of those care pathways that will be needed to help patients recover as fully as possible and as quickly as possible, having experienced the deeply debilitating impact of the disease.

Question 5, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Sorry, Llywydd, there was a delay with the unmuting. Thank you.