COVID infection in Wales is likely to peak “late next month” as more than 97 percent of cases in North Wales are now the Delta variant.

That is what the latest modelling by Swansea University is suggestion, First Minister Mark Drakeford told a press briefing in Cardiff on Friday.

Mr Drakeford said the same modelling would mean he would be able to announce whether the pausing of restrictions could end at the next review in three weeks time.

The First Minister said: “In previous waves, there has always been a lag between infections in the community and an increase in hospitalisations and deaths.

“If this wave follows the same pattern, we can expect to see these peaking in August.

“What we don’t yet know is what impact our high rates of vaccination will have and how much the relationship between infections on the one hand, and hospitalisations on the other, has been weakened by vaccination.”

Mr Drakeford said there was “positive research evidence” that Covid-19 vaccines were helping to prevent serious illness despite the Delta variant and called on people to have both doses.

The First Minister added that it made no sense to be drawn on a date for when lockdown measures could begin to be eased again.

Mr Drakeford said: "We have had a plethora of dates in England that have not been fully achieved. I have not been a fan of that approach.

"If everything goes on in a positive direction we will continue lifting restrictions.

"But neither I or the Prime Minister or anyone knows how things will look in three weeks.

"There is no guarantee things will be better in three weeks time, though we hope they will be.

"Every three weeks we sum up the position, we report on them, and we hope we will be able to go on restoring freedoms to people in the different parts of their lives."

The First Minister was asked how Wales would look when everyone had been fully vaccinated.

Mr Drakeford said: "We will have a much clearer understanding of the relationship between vaccination and falling ill to the extent you are in hospital.

"Let us take an optimistic view. The date is looking that way at the minute.

"At that point people will have been able to meet indoors, people will be able to mix in greater numbers, and we may be moving away from the mandation fo those very important actions and continue to advise people to abide by them.

"That is where we might be able to get to when we are confident that double dosing really does protect people from falling ill and needing a hospital bed."

But now he warned the Delta variant is “spreading freely in communities right across Wales.

There were just under 500 confirmed cases of the variant in the country last Friday but this has now more than doubled to around 1,100 cases, he told the press conference in Cardiff.

Mr Drakeford said the incidence rate of coronavirus across Wales had risen to 37 cases per 100,000 people and was highest in North Wales, where four of the six local authority areas have rates higher than 50 cases per 100,000 people.

“As many as 97% of new cases of coronavirus in North Wales are caused by the Delta variant,” Mr Drakeford said.

“The very latest information I have is that 15 people have been admitted to hospital having contracted the Delta variant in Wales.”

Mr Drakeford said Wales was “two to three weeks behind” the Covid-19 situation in the rest of the UK.