The next item therefore is the statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services on COVID-19. I call on the Minister to make her statement—Eluned Morgan.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you for the opportunity to update Members again this week on what is very clearly a very fast moving public health situation. Last week, I reported that there was a possibility cases could still peak over the next seven to 10 days, and since then we've been monitoring the situation very closely. During the past week, we have in fact seen some very clear signs of improvement, which suggests the measures we've taken are working. But I say this with caution. Over the last six weeks, we've seen how things can change really quickly, but we've always been clear that we would not impose restrictions on the people of Wales for any longer than necessary, and so we're acting on the evidence in front of us.

This week, overall case incidence has decreased to 572 per 100,000, with weekly test positivity at 35.8 per cent. As I advised last week, and have to reiterate, case numbers have been affected by the changes in the testing regime, and the fact we no longer require those who test positive on a lateral flow test to take a confirmatory PCR test. But the fall in cases we are seeing started a few days before this change to testing and the positivity rate is also falling. We must now rely on a broader range of measures to continue understanding this wave. It is therefore even more important for people to report the result of every lateral flow test they do, and self-isolate as soon as they test positive.

Based on Public Health Wales reports comparing early December to early January, we've seen a significant increase in lateral flow tests reported on gov.uk, with almost 200,000 additional tests reported in the week ending 9 January. This is a positive sign that the people of Wales are listening to the advice, taking tests more regularly and reporting the results. 

The total number of people in hospital with COVID-19 is just over 1,100, and there are some early signs that the total number of COVID-19 patients in hospital is falling and the rate of admissions is starting to slow. Based on our most recent data, infections in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where more protective measures were put in place, are lower than in England, and there are now signs that the growth in infections in Wales is slowing down. For these reasons, the First Minister announced on Friday that the Cabinet has now agreed a road map to take us back to alert level 0, as long as we continue to see improvements in the public health situation over the next few weeks. We'll do this carefully and in a phased way to allow us to make sure the early signs of improvement continue before we make further changes.

Our first change was that, from Saturday, the number of people who can be present at outdoor events increased from 50 to 500.

If the public health situation continues to improve, from this Friday 21 January onwards, all outdoor activities will move to alert level 0. This means no limits on the numbers who can take part in outdoor activities, crowds can return to outdoor sporting events, and outdoor hospitality venues will be able to operate without additional measures. However, the COVID pass will be required for entry to larger outdoor events. Then, from Friday 28 January onwards, our intention is to move to alert level 0 for all indoor activities. This means that nightclubs will be able to reopen and it will no longer be a legal requirement to work from home, although we will continue to recommend doing so. As with larger outdoor events, the COVID pass will continue to be required to enter large events, nightclubs, cinemas, theatres and concert halls.

We are now taking our first steps back towards alert level 0, and we are able to do this because the people of Wales have taken the steps we have asked them to take to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. It is also important to recognise and acknowledge that our fantastic vaccination programme is key to how we are able to move forward. Over 1.7 million individuals in Wales have received a booster vaccine dose. This huge effort has no doubt given us all extra protection against omicron. I wish to reiterate once again that it is never too late to be vaccinated. I want to make it clear that we will continue to encourage everyone eligible to have their vaccinations and boosters. This is saving lives, it's controlling the pandemic and it's safeguarding our NHS.

Llywydd, even though today's message is fairly positive and optimistic, I have to emphasise that this doesn't mean that the pandemic is over. Omicron is still with us and we have to continue to monitor the public health situation as these restrictions begin to ease. However, I do want to thank once again the people of Wales, our NHS, our public services, our businesses and all of those who have worked so hard to protect us. Without the understanding and co-operation of everyone in Wales, we wouldn't be able to move forward in the way we are now planning to do and in the way that we hope to do over the coming weeks. Thank you very much, Llywydd.

Can I thank the Minister for her earlier briefing to me and colleagues? That was appreciated, Minister. And, of course, thank you for your statement today, much of which, of course, we know from the press conference last Friday from the First Minister.

Can I ask about the isolation period first of all, Minister? I was a bit disappointed that we didn't have anything on that today in the statement. We know that the UK Health Security Agency has found that most people are not infectious after five days and we know that the UK Government has reduced the period from seven to five days, albeit that you have to have a negative on the fifth day. Clearly, there are huge advantages of reducing that period for public services, particularly health services that are under huge pressure, as they are so very much here in Wales. So, can you give us an indication of when you will be making an announcement on reducing that isolation period and your considerations on that? Clearly, at some point, there'll be no isolation period. We're not there yet, but we will be at that point at some point in time.

Given that the omicron variant has subsided so quickly, you stated in your statement today that it is welcome news, and I agree that it's very welcome news, of course, in that regard. But we have seen case rates plummeting about as quickly as they arrived, which is good news, but, in that regard, I would ask, and you would expect me to ask, about the Government's timing on lifting restrictions, which are economically damaging—and we know that, of course—and, I would suggest, clinically unnecessary to have restrictions, particularly on hospitality and sporting events. Can I ask you why you did not end restrictions at the same time? They were introduced at the same time, so why were they not lifted at the same time, given that the case rates plummeted as quickly as they came in? And you would expect me to ask this question, Minister, but do you believe that the restrictions that were put in place were an overreaction? I expect that you expected me to ask that question.

I am concerned, Minister, about some of the messaging given to the Senedd and the Welsh public. Last Tuesday, and I'm quoting you here, you said this:

'We are in the middle of the storm at the moment; now is not the time to talk about dismantling the protection measures we've put in place.'

That was just last Tuesday. So, we couldn't even talk about them last Tuesday, and then, two days later, the First Minister announced the rolling back of some of the restrictions. We know, as well, that hospitalisation rates are nearly a third of the delta variant this time last year, and death rates stood at one nineteenth, compared to the same period of time. So, this is why I ask the question about the overreaction and your words in this regard.

The First Minister said last month that, in January, half of the UK population could be ill with COVID. Of course, that has not happened and we're not out of January yet, but no-one is suggesting that that is the case now. But, of course, the First Minister stated that based on the data presented to him and based on the modelling, so I understand that. But can I ask, the weight that you apply when making decisions to modelling, particularly modelling on the worst-case scenarios, what analysis does the Government do of the modelling after the event in terms of checking for accuracy against actually what happened? And do you think that it's time to have a wider review of how modelling is conducted and, more importantly, the weight that is attached to it against the other balances that have to be taken into account as well?

I looked back at your comments last week, Minister, when I asked you about your plans in terms of living with COVID for the future, and you were a little shocked that I was asking those questions and suggesting that this wasn't the time to be talking about these things. But, of course, I know that the UK Labour Party has also discussed living with COVID. So, I'm hoping I can ask you this question in a way that gets a clearer answer this week: what are your plans in terms of living with COVID? The public does not want to be under the threat of having restrictions winter after winter, and you won't want that either, Minister, so can we have a little bit more information about your plans for living with COVID?

And finally, Minister, the last question I will ask you is about the fastest way to get a vaccine certification. You said that the digital NHS COVID pass service remains the fastest way to get proof of vaccine certification. That's not the case for many people. Three constituents of mine—one in Edinburgh—can't get the pass, can't get a 'fully vaccinated' certificate, because one vaccination was in Newtown, one was in Edinburgh, and a similar position for somebody in France. And a constituent last week was not able to get their certification because they're taking their young child, for health reasons, for urgent health treatment, to another part of Europe, and it's the last thing the family needed that they are not able to get their vaccination certification due to apps not working in conjunction with other countries. So, can I ask you, in that regard, why are we lagging behind on the Welsh NHS app, and when can we expect to be in a position where these issues are resolved? Can you give us a date on that particular issue and when we're going to see the app working as it should be, Minister?

Thanks very much, Russell. First of all, on the isolation period, you'll be aware, Russell, that we've already reduced that from 10 to seven days, and the UK Health Security Agency, interestingly enough, their evidence previously was very robust on the fact that they wanted to stick at seven. Now, my understanding is that the underlying evidence on this has not changed. I still haven't seen the analysis on which that decision has been made, so I'm waiting for advice on that. You say, Russell, that most has gone after five days. That's true, but 30 per cent of people are still carrying the infection after five days. So, that's quite a lot of people. So, if you want to be sending people back into workplaces after five days and 30 per cent of them are in that situation, then I do think we need to give that some pretty serious thought. We will be looking at the evidence on this. My analysis from just watching what's going on in England is that, actually, this is a political call and it's a judgment call that they're making not on the basis of science and evidence, not on the basis of changed science and evidence, but on the basis of the pressure that the NHS and other services are under at the moment. So, it's more of a political judgment. Now, we have to assess the risks. We may be in a different situation in terms of risk, but let's be absolutely clear: there is a risk if we're sending people back into workplaces and 30 per cent of them potentially could be carrying the virus. That's another risk you have to consider. Now, we'll be looking at that data over the next few days and making a judgment on that by the end of this week.

You're absolutely right that case rates are plummeting, which is great. And it was very interesting of you to ask about lifting restrictions and why aren't we lifting them earlier. Well, the reason is because we're still at really high rates. Now, they're much better than they were a week ago, but we're still at 572 cases per 100,000. Now, if we were in that situation in the middle of August last year, we'd have been throwing our hands up in the air, saying, 'My God, these are high rates'. So, we've just got to just be aware that we're not out of the woods on this yet. These are really, really high rates still; they're just not as high as they were a week ago. And I do think that as to asking did we overreact, I've got to tell you that our initial analysis, and it is very much initial analysis, does suggest that, although about 170,000 people in Wales had COVID at one point—that's enough people to fill the millennium stadium about two and a quarter times—had we not brought in restrictions, we'd have had an extra 69,000 people with COVID. So, that's enough to almost fill the millennium stadium again, had we followed what happened in London with them reaching the kind of rates that they got to where they didn't put any restrictions in place. So, that's our initial analysis. I'm hoping that we'll be able to do a bit more number crunching around that. And, obviously, it is appropriate for us to analyse after the event—you're absolutely right. We are very keen to learn—we're all learning here. This is a new variant; nobody had heard of omicron only a month and a half ago. And so, what we were doing, we were depending on modelling that was using imperfect data to address and to determine what that modelling looked like. So, we did peak earlier than expected, we didn't see as many hospitalisations as we had feared, so some of that modelling, perhaps, wasn't where we thought it might be, but in a good way, but also what that means is that, actually, had we followed some of the judgments that people were asking us to consider, which were to lock down even further, that may have been an overreaction. But I think we got it just about right, and obviously time will tell if we got it just about right. But what I can tell you, Russell, is that the people of Wales think that the First Minister of Wales is comfortably the most popular leader in the United Kingdom. So, his judgment is something that the people of Wales certainly appreciate. Boris Johnson was on about 39 per cent—how the hell he got 39 per cent is beyond me—but Mark Drakeford was well ahead of him and even Nicola Sturgeon on 57 per cent, so very pleased to see that.

The other points you made were on living with COVID. At some point, yes, you're absolutely right, we've got to live with COVID, but I think there are some issues that we need to consider. One is the waning of vaccinations, which is something that we're not quite clear on with omicron yet. So, we haven't seen to what extent that booster will be protecting us in future and the other thing is, potentially, another wave that will come. Most of the waves we've had have another wave that follows them, so, who knows, is there going to be another wave? So, we've got to live with it, but how we live with it, to what extent we live with it, who do we protect and how do we protect them, all of those things are things that, clearly, we are having constant discussions on.

On the digital certification, the systems between England and Wales speak to each other quite well; the systems between Wales and Scotland don't. So, there's constant work being done on that: it is difficult. The apps—. It's not a Welsh thing, this, the English apps don't speak to them either and, actually, most of that digital work is being done on our behalf by the UK Government, so maybe, Russell, you could ask them to help us out on that as well. But, certainly, we are hoping that we can get a better situation on that. The booster does show on the COVID app, but it doesn't show on the QR code yet, but I think that's supposed to change around about 6 February.

I don't have very many comments to make today, truth be told. A week ago, I was calling on the Minister to give greater attention to the positive signs that I certainly thought were coming to the fore according to the statistics. She was reluctant to do that, but I understand, of course, that she was being cautious, but things were starting to look better and, indeed, things look much better now, and I'm very grateful for the briefing that I had with fellow members of the health committee at lunch time today to confirm that the main indicators are all looking significantly better and that the situation is accelerating in terms of the improvement process.

By a week on Friday now, we'll be in a situation where the latest regulations will have been lifted, and I welcome that, but I would like to ask what consideration will be given to moving more swiftly than that, even. Is there room to make changes sooner? Because the impression I get is that things are accelerating in terms of emerging from this wave, so even a few days could make a difference. I'm thinking about the hospitality sector, for example, which has been hit particularly hard, and I urge you to work with the Minister for Economy—I see the Minister in this virtual Senedd this afternoon—to ensure that all possible support is being given to that sector, and any other sector that is suffering, and that that support is given as soon as possible.

I, too, want to ask for further comment again, if I may, on the work that is being done to assess the current self-isolation period. The Minister, like myself, I know, will be looking forward to not only getting it down to five days from seven, but to getting it down to zero, so that we don't need to self-isolate at all, but I know that we need to proceed with caution on that. It is important, I think, that we understand what the balance of considerations is, in terms of the pure medical evidence as to how infectious people are and when and other considerations, economic considerations and so on. I do note, despite that, that the WHO is very nervous about decreasing the self-isolation period at present. It is a matter of balance, of course.

I want to appeal for accelerating the process towards getting the NHS Wales app working properly with all of those elements of booster vaccines. I received an e-mail from a parent the other day who couldn't access any information about what booster their child had received so that they could use that information for travel and for a COVID pass and so on. There is a job of work to be done, I think, on our digital processes and ensuring that we do have the tools that we need to get us all through this pandemic.

Thank you very much, Rhun. Just to respond quickly to Russ—.

Sorry, Russ, I did suggest that the COVID pass QR code would be ready on 6 February; it was 8 February. Just so that I've corrected that already.

Rhun, is it possible to move more swiftly? Well, I am reluctant to say that it is because one of the things that we are concerned about is that we haven't quite seen what's happening in the schools yet. There are signs in some other places where we're seeing an increase in the numbers of cases in our schools, so the concern is whether that is then going to feed into the adult population and the population of older people. So, we just want to keep an eye on that before we look at that, but the point was to show people what the direction of travel is and what the route-map is, and I think that's important. People know where the finish line could be. Of course, we know that every day of restrictions is costly for businesses and that's why we've provided the support that the First Minister referred to earlier on.

In terms of assessing the period of self-isolation, well, you're right, there is a health side of this that we need to consider, and certainly from what I've seen in previous evidence from the UK Health Security Agency, they were clear that there would be a risk in sending people in to places such as care homes and hospitals, if you were to say, 'Right, well, it's a five-day isolation period and if you get a clear LFT, then you can go back into those settings.' So, they were reluctant to do that in the past and I want to know what's changed. If it's a political judgment that's been made, then clearly you do have to consider the economic factors, and that's what we will be doing over the coming days. But I am eager to ensure that we do protect those most vulnerable locations such as our hospitals and care homes. So, we do need to consider all of those things in the round over the coming days. It's not just the WHO that says that you shouldn't drop below seven days of isolation, but the majority of nations in the EU.

In terms of the NHS Wales app, oh my gosh, Rhun, I'm just as eager as you are to see that developing. One of the problems that we have with those digital issues is that we don't have enough people who have the digital skills in our systems. Everyone is chasing the same people and that's why it's taking so much time. You can't just turn that supply of staff on overnight, but clearly we do have a plan to bring this app forward. We will bring it forward as soon as possible. We are always putting pressure on them. You know that I am as eager as you are to see e-prescribing. That's what's preventing it, not that we're not eager to see that happening, but that we don't have sufficient personnel, and remember, everyone in the private sector is after those people as well. So, clearly, we want to improve our digital processes.

Thank you, Minister. Only two contributions this afternoon. So, thank you for that.