WELSH Government has announced that tighter coronavirus restrictions are on the horizon.

Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales, made the official announcement about the ‘fire-breaker’ to the nation on Monday, October 19.

Later that day, the country’s minister for health and social services Vaughan Gething explained what the rules will look like in practice and how the decision was reached by ministers.

Here is a written version of his opening statement:

It’s been a difficult day in Wales as we have had to announce a ‘fire-break’ that is going to come into force - essentially a short, sharp lockdown across the whole of Wales for a period of just over two weeks - starting on Friday this week [October 23] and ending just over two weeks later on the Monday morning [November 9].

Now, what this essentially will mean is that, in Wales we are going to return to conditions that we recall seeing at the end of March and into April.

It means that we are telling people, by law, that they need to stay at home unless they have a specific reason for leaving. It is going into work if you cannot reasonably work from home.

It also means that we are asking people to only leave their home for a specific number of reasons – exercise, you can leave your front door on foot or on a bike any times in the day.

We are also going to keep primary schools open so next week, in most of Wales, it is half term and then in the week following primary schools and early years childcare will be open as normal. We’ll also have the first two years of high school – years seven and eight - open as well.

The Leader:

It sets out that, whilst the local restrictions have had a real impact, a substantial impact as the term of their advice uses, in slowing down coronavirus rates of transmissions and spreads. On their own, they won’t be enough.

There is a very, very clear recommendation to us as ministers that we should introduce a ‘fire-break’, a period of closure as I say of most parts of life and activity which takes us back to the March lockdown - apart of school activity - to allow us to get on top of where it is this disease is, to reduce those rates of transmission and, then, to try and create in the period of the ‘fire-break’ a set of new, simpler national rules for us all to be able to follow, to live our lives by, to allow us to get to the end of this year.

I know this is difficult and confusing for many people so we have already published not just a statement, not just the evidence paper of the scientific advice that I refer to, but also a series of frequently asked questions to help people to understand what the new rules are, why they have been introduced and how you can find them.