Public Health Wales confirms first Omicron case identified in North Wales

The first case of the Covid variant omicron has been confirmed in North Wales.

Public Health Wales said today, Saturday 11 December that two new cases of the Covid variant had been identified in Wales, “one in the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board area, and one in the Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board area.”

“This brings us to a total of 15 cases in Wales, of which three are linked to international travel.”

During a press conference on Friday Wales’ first minister, Mark Drakeford said omicron infections in Wales are “very modest at the moment” but “we must expect that to rise.”

He said Coronavirus restrictions in Wales will now be reviewed every week, rather than every three weeks.

Wales will remain in Alert Level Zero following the latest 21 day review – however, Mr Drakeford is urging everyone to get the booster vaccine, to take regular lateral flow tests before going out and to wear face coverings.

He said: “Over the last week the cabinet here has been reviewing the Coronavirus regulations.”

“We’ve carefully considered what protections we need to keep well safe from the current delta wave that wave is still with us now.”

“And then to look as to how we can protect people from the Omicron wave which we know is coming our way.”

“This is a very challenging balance.

“We may be about a week behind what is happening in other parts of England and Scotland.”

“And that may give us a little bit more time here in Wales to learn and to act. ”

“But because of the speed at which things may change, the Cabinet will move from a three weeks cycle of decision making to a one week cycle.”

“That means all the things that I’m announcing today are here for the next week and then we will review the situation again.”

“We’ll be monitoring the public health circumstances very closely to consider if we need to put additional protections in place to keep us safe.”

“We are going to move our decision making forward we’re not going to wait three weeks, because in three weeks an awful lot could have changed.”

As we reported, The First Minister spoke about the possible ‘spectrum’ of Omicron’s impact, “We’re not completely sure how severe an illness the Omicron variant will provide. So there’s a lot of work going on to find out that.

“I think we know it will spread very fast, but will it be more severe? We don’t know enough about that.”

“The context in the United Kingdom is different to the South African context. The age structure of our population is different. The nature of our health service is different, and we have a much more highly vaccinated population with, as I said a million people in Wales already having had their boosters, and we don’t know exactly how stronger protection that will provide.

“If we are at a fortunate end of the spectrum, milder illness, that the booster program gives you a significant defence against it, then the models show that the impact will be very real because of the speed, but that is probably absorbable by our public services.

“If it turns out that the variant is as severe, or more severe than Delta, if the vaccine escape is greater than we would have hoped for, then models will show that that impact will be much more difficult to manage.”

“We’re not at a point where the modeling is sufficiently secure for us to know which of those paths, but that’s that’s the spectrum for you.

“A spectrum between it being difficult but manageable, to being difficult and additional actions being needed in order to manage it.”