3. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Update on Coronavirus

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:26 pm on 8 June 2021.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 3:26, 8 June 2021

(Translated)

Thank you very much, and welcome to the Senedd to you too, Mabon. Certainly, I think that it is important to understand how impractical it would be for us to close our borders, but having said that, I have already tried to demonstrate what we're doing in practical terms to ask people to take the steps that we want them to take before they come to our nation: to take a test before they travel, but also to comply with the rules that we have here. A great deal of work has been done by our hotels and those people who work in our pubs and so on to ask people—we have something called Addo, and the idea is that we let people know what our expectations are of them if they come to Wales, what we expect them to comply with once they arrive in Wales. So, a great deal of work has gone into that scheme, that marketing has taken place, not just in Wales, but beyond our borders too. Of course, it's difficult for us to reach everyone, but that is what we're trying to do.

Certainly, in terms of Portugal, the Welsh Government was supportive of placing Portugal on the amber list, and one of the reasons for that was because there was a new variant in Portugal that comes from Nepal, and we don't yet know whether that variant will respond to the vaccine. So, it's not just a question of the numbers; we were concerned about that new variant too.