Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:27 pm on 19 January 2022.
Thanks very much, Delyth. I'm pleased to say that the sickness levels within the NHS have actually reduced from a week ago, so they were at about 8.3 per cent of staff off a week ago, now down to 7.3 per cent and, of those, around 1.7 per cent were off with COVID, and about 1 per cent of them were off for self-isolation reasons. So, the rest of them were kind of normal sickness that happens to lots of people at this time of year anyway.
In relation to the masks, I haven't seen that advice. I'm very happy to go and see if something's arrived, but I obviously can't give you any commitment on that until I've seen that advice, but I'll make a point of going to ask if we have received any additional update. I know it's something that we're constantly looking at; it's constantly kind of, 'Look, should we be doing this?' And we're waiting for the advice to change. We have been waiting for the advice to change. If the advice has changed, then, obviously, we will have to look at that again, but I haven't seen that updated advice, but I'll make a point of going to look for it now, Delyth.FootnoteLink