COVID-19 Variants of Concern

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:17 pm on 13 July 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:17, 13 July 2021

I think the good news about the Welsh public is that people in Wales continue to support the careful and cautious way in which we have responded together to the virus in Wales. I think there is a genuine sense in Wales that this is not just a matter of personal responsibility. The answer to dealing with coronavirus cannot possibly be, 'You're on your own, decide for yourself, make it up in the way that you would prefer'. People in Wales have understood all the way through that this is a matter not just of how I behave, it is a matter of how we behave. This is a collective response to the virus, and people in Wales have been prepared to play their part all the way through.

I can't speak for the post boxes of other Members of the Senedd, but my post box over the last week has been full of people writing to me asking the Welsh Government not to step aside from the sensible precautions that we have all been following together. Often, that comes from people who are themselves vulnerable and who are deeply anxious about what it will be like for them if they are asked to go into places and into contexts where other people are no longer being asked to observe those simple and sensible measures. So, I think at least we have this on our side, in answer to Delyth Jewell's question—that the mood of Welsh people is not a mood of thirsting for some spurious freedom day; it remains a cautious approach in which people want each one of us to go on playing our part.