'Last thing we want to do is cancel Christmas' says Wales' Health Minister

The Health Minister was questioned about whether families might be asked to spend the holiday apart if cases surge, at a government press briefing on Tuesday.

The minister said the Welsh Government is "currently not taking anything off the table".

"The last thing we want to do is cancel Christmas. I think it is important we make that absolutely clear," she told journalists at the briefing.

"But we are not currently taking anything off the table either, so the best thing for people to do, in order to see if we can remain in a situation where we are all able to see each other over Christmas is to take precautions now, so that we don't see the kind of increasing rates that we are all expecting.

"A lot of this is in our hands, as individuals and as a community. The more you mix now, the more likely you are to contract Covid, and this particular form of Covid.

"Certainly, at the very minimum we will be asking people to take lateral flow tests before they mix at Christmas but that is something they should be undertaking already, particularly if they are meeting older and vulnerable people," she added.

"I think people should plan because we don't know what the situation will be at Christmas time. Taking the opportunity to do things early would be a sensible option, but we have no idea what Christmas will look like because it's such an unpredictable situation.

NHS staff asked to cancel their leave to assist with booster jab rollout

The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is now present in every local health board area across Wales - with 30 cases reported so far. Welsh Government health minister Eluned Morgan said the focus will shift towards vaccinating people over the next three weeks.

"The NHS will continue to provide essential services, emergency and urgent care," she said.

"But we will be redeploying all available clinical staff to vaccination centres.

"We'll be asking them to work in existing mass vaccination centres, which will be expanded to their maximum capacity and in new centres."

Dedicated walk-in lanes and opening hours extended

"This will mean asking NHS staff to vaccinate from early in the morning to late into the night to make sure as many people as possible have the extra protection the booster dose offers," the minister said.

"Expanding the booster programme is a massive undertaking. We'll need to more than double the speed of the programme if we're going to be successful."

Every adult in Wales would be offered a booster jab by the end of the month

"It was our intention to offer all eligible adults an appointment by the end of January," Ms Morgan told a Welsh Government briefing.

"We are now aiming to offer all eligible adults an appointment by the end of December."

The NHS Covid Pass may have to be reviewed

Dr Gill Richardson, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Vaccines said: "I think the Covid pass is continually going to have to be looked at as this pandemic pans out across the world we know some countries have added the booster and have added an interval since the booster," she told a Welsh Government briefing.

"Some countries are still considering introducing the pass and we know that is being debated in the UK today.

"We have our facility to lateral flow test in our pass already, we have the two doses already and we will be keeping it under review."

Assessing whether schools will re-open in January

Parents have raised concerns about whether the school holiday will be extended into January to lessen the risk of classroom transmissions, and Ms Morgan refused to rule out keeping schools closed.

"All of these issues will be assessed and reviewed, and we are already discussing what are the greatest risks and what we can control as a Government," Eluned Morgan said.

"We have got to bring the public with us and we are very aware, and that is why these are very tough calls and we will making those assessments as the situation changes and we see those rates increase."

Classes in Denbighshire and Anglesey will move online for the last days of term.