New regulations to prevent people who live in areas with high
coronavirus infection rates across the UK from travelling to Wales
will come into force later today, First Minister has confirmed.
The new restrictions will take effect from 6pm today.
The action is being taken after the Prime Minister declined the
First Minister’s requests to make advisory travel guidance in
English coronavirus hotspots mandatory.
Under the regulations, people living in areas with a
high-prevalence of coronavirus in England, Scotland and Northern
Ireland will not be able to travel to Wales for the time being.
They are being introduced to help prevent the virus spreading
from high-prevalence areas to lower-prevalence communities.
First Minister said:
“The number of coronavirus cases across Wales is growing and our
health service is coming under pressure as more people fall ill.
“Much of Wales is now subject to local restrictions, which mean
people living in these local health protection areas are not able
to travel beyond their county boundaries without a reasonable
excuse. These rules are designed to prevent the spread of
infection within Wales and to other areas of the UK.
“To keep Wales safe, we are introducing these new, wider travel
regulations to make it clear that people living in areas with a
high prevalence of coronavirus in England, Scotland and Northern
Ireland cannot travel to parts of Wales where there is low
prevalence.
“It is vital we do all we can to keep communities, which have low
levels of infection as safe as possible, and this sensible and
necessary restriction will help prevent the virus moving from
more urban, highly populated areas to more sparsely populated
areas.”
The new travel regulations will enable people to travel for a
limited number of reasons, such as for work.
Local restrictions in place in Wales already mean people living
in a local health protection area – usually a local authority
area – are not able to enter of leave their area without a
reasonable excuse. This is to prevent the spread of coronavirus
to other parts of Wales and the UK.
Notes to editors
The Welsh Government has published a paper about the genetic
makeup of the virus, which causes covid-19, jointly authored by
the Bioinformatics team at Public Health Wales and the Pathogen
Genomics Unit from the Cardiff University School of Biosciences:
https://gov.wales/genomic-analysis-covid-19-lineages-wales
