Up to 30 people will be allowed to meet together outdoors in Wales from Monday as the country moves to alert level one of its coronavirus restrictions, First Minister Mark Drakeford has announced.
The move comes as levels of coronavirus in Wales remain very low, with the latest 7-day case rate for the country standing at 7.52 cases per 100,000 people.
Wales also has the best vaccination rates of the UK nations, with more than 85% of the population having so far received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.
The First Minister has confirmed that the following changes will take effect in Wales from Monday 7 June;
- Up to 30 people can meet in outdoor spaces, including in public or private gardens and outdoor hospitality
- Larger outdoor organised events will be able to take place for up to 10,000 people seated, or 4,000 people for non-seated events (subject to risk assessments and virus protection measures)
Ministers are to review the public health data later in June, ahead of June 21, to determine whether further restrictions can be relaxed to allow for an increased number of people at indoor gatherings.
Announcing the latest easing of restrictions, First Minister Mark Drakeford said;
“The risk of infection is significantly less outdoors than it is indoors. This is why we are phasing in the changes in this three-week cycle. This will allow more people to enjoy events outdoors and take advantage of the Welsh summer, while we continue to roll out the vaccination programme to all adults.
“We will review the public health situation again in a couple of weeks to see whether we can continue to relax the restrictions and restart indoor events.”
According to the latest data, no new coronavirus related deaths have been reported in Wales in the last 7 days. There are though concerns over the Delta (Indian) variant of COVID-19 with 97 cases so far identified in Wales.
On Thursday, a further 49 cases of COVID-19 were reported in Wales, taking the total number of cases in the country since the start of the pandemic to 212,928.
