Health Minister voices concern over coronavirus case rise in Holyhead – but wants to examine cause before taking localised action

Wales’ Health Minister has expressed his concern over a rise in coronavirus cases in Holyhead.

The town’s Covid-19 infection rates are responsible for over half of Anglesey’s total for March.

Anglesey currently has the second highest seven day infection rate per 100,000 people across Wales, despite cases generally dropping nationwide with some counties not displaying any new cases at all.

Yesterday, the local authority confirmed that 54% of the 174 positive coronavirus cases on Anglesey through March – identified through the Test, Trace and Protect team – have been in and around Holyhead.

Council bosses have not ruled out the possibility of a local lockdown or closing the area’s schools once again in a bid to help curb transmission.

However, Health Minister Vaughan Gething said the Welsh Government wanted to understand the reasons for the high number of cases before any localised action is taken.

Speaking at today’s coronavirus media briefing, he said: “There’s no choice as of yet about measures around Holyhead or the rest of the island of Anglesey.

“We need to understand exactly what is happening and what that means.

“Then, as we have regularly done during the course the pandemic, we will work with the local health service, local authority, and other actors in making choices together about what the right thing to do is.

“The leader of the local authority on Anglesey is a Plaid Cymru leader there but we’ve always had a very constructive and honest and grown up relationship with her and the authority she leads in making these choices.

“That will continue to be the way we behave, not just in Anglesey but right across the country.”

Mr Gething discussed his concerns around the situation in Holyhead and Anglesey more generally at the start of the press conference.

He said:

“The overall rate of coronavirus in Wales remains relatively stable at around 42 cases per 100,000 people, and the positivity rate is just under 4%.

“However, there is some variation in the figures associated with a number of outbreaks in some local authority areas.

“These have helped to push up the case rate in Merthyr Tydfil Anglesey and Conwy, in particular.”

He later continued: “We are concerned about those three authorities in particular because they’re the most visible increases in case rates.

“If they’d followed the national trend overall then we would have seen a further reduction so they do make a difference.”

Mr Gething was also questioned about the possibility of schools being closed in Holyhead.

He said: “The challenge about Holyhead and Anglesey is about our understanding of what exactly is happening now.

“I expect the IMT, the local groups of health, local government and other leaders gathering together with our public health officials to look at the evidence on how that spread is occurring, and then to make a risk based decision on schools opening.

“What I would never say is that you can never take a step that would otherwise be the right thing to protect the public.

“But we also know that there’s a real impact on our children and young people in keeping schools closed.

“We know that our children and young people are least likely to suffer harm so it isn’t the operation of the schools that ends up being the issue that has driven coronavirus rates – it’s almost always been indoor contact between adults as the biggest factor.”