Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:57 pm on 3 May 2022.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Adam Price Adam Price Plaid Cymru 1:57, 3 May 2022

Well, the High Court can help us out in that way, can't it? Because it actually goes into the very question that you've just raised, First Minister. This is what it says:

'there was no scientific proof in mid March 2020 that asymptomatic transmission was occurring, but it was well recognised by the experts that such transmission was possible.'

'Ministers', they go on to say, the High Court judges,

'were obliged to weigh up not just the likelihood that nonsymptomatic transmission was occurring, but also the very serious consequences if it did so.'

The very points that were being made here in Wales as well. The science of asymptomatic transmission wasn't different, was it, here in Wales compared to England. The level of knowledge during the time period that the High Court was referring to was the same here, and the consequences of getting it wrong—the fatal consequences, I'm sad to say, of getting it wrong—were exactly the same. So, don't you accept, based on the judgment set out by the High Court, that the failure to recognise the possibility of asymptomatic transmission led to very, very fatal consequences here in Wales? And it would be good to have an honest answer to that now from the First Minister, given the strength of feeling that exists out there amongst the Welsh public, not least amongst the bereaved families.