Wales First Minister Mark Drakeford told Sky News the regulations would be reviewed every three weeks, with the next review due on January 29.
We will see then even whether there are some early marginal differences we could make to lockdown to reward people, in a way, for all the astonishing efforts they’ve made during the last few weeks to help us to turn the tide on coronavirus,” Mr Drakeford said.
“I think it will be certainly the middle of February before we begin to see any more significant lifting of the lockdown. There are things we want to be getting on with now.
“We want to see more children back in school, for example, we will look to see whether it is possible to offer more opportunities to meet in the open air where we know coronavirus is less of a risk, and we will do it in the way that we did it earlier last year in Wales.
“We will do it carefully we will do it cautiously and we will do it in a way that will not throw away all the efforts and the gains that we have made since Christmas.”
– Case numbers in Wales halved since Christmas
Mr Drakeford said the case numbers in Wales had halved since before Christmas – with rates down to 300 cases per 100,000 from 650.
“We’re just beginning to see the impact of that on our hospital services as well so we go into this week, compared to where we were on Monday of last week, with fewer patients in hospital in Wales suffering from coronavirus and fewer patients suffering from coronavirus in intensive care,” he said.
“Those are marginal gains this week but I think it has demonstrated that the system has stabilised and just begun to turn the corner.
“I do think it demonstrates that we were right to go into lockdown in Wales before Christmas. We’re seeing the advantage of a move early in that way.”
