We're wrapping up our live coverage on the day health officials revealed a hospital outbreak had led to further deaths.

• There have been 21 deaths and 127 people have tested positive for Covid-19 following an outbreak at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant
• Separately, a further three people have died and 752 people have tested positive for coronavirus, according to daily figures published by Public Health Wales (PHW) on Wednesday
• Wales needs to prepare itself for "quite a difficult winter", chief medical officer Dr Frank Atherton told a Welsh Government briefing
• Plaid Cymru has warned of a need to 'pull that emergency cord' of extra restrictions if cases continue to rise
• Bangor in Gwynedd is under “active watch” following a rise in Covid-19 cases
• Hyperlocal lockdowns putting restrictions on individual towns are not being ruled out, according to Dr Atherton
• He also said no further restrictions were planned for school half-term

Until our next live blog, we'll keep you updated via the BBC News website and social media channels.

Hyperlocal lockdowns would be "smarter" than county-wide restrictions, according a senior Welsh Conservative.

South Wales Central Member of the Senedd (MS) Andrew RT Davies wants a more "targeted approach" to help Bridgend county which is in lockdown with 14 other council areas in Wales, along with the town of Llanelli in Carmarthenshire.

Restrictions on individual towns are not being ruled out, but Wales' chief medical officer has said it “feels right” to stick to local authority boundaries when introducing rules to tackle increases in Covid cases.

However, Mr Davies shared a map on Twitter which showed Blaengarw in the north of Bridgend county as an apparent hot spot for the virus.

Wales needs to prepare itself for "a difficult winter", the country's top doctor has warned.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Frank Atherton told a Welsh Government press conference that further restrictions could not be ruled out as Covid-19 cases rise.

"We are going to have to learn to live with it," he said.

Another three deaths and 572 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed by Public Health Wales.

Most of the 1,643 deaths have come in the Betsi Cadwaladr health board area of north Wales, which is also the largest.

Cwm Taf in the south Wales valleys is next, followed by the Aneurin Bevan board area in south east Wales.

Ogmore's Labour MP Chris Elmore has tackled Boris Johnson at Prime Minister's Questions over artists and musicians struggling to make a living during lockdown.

He rejects suggestions by Chancellor Rishi Sunak that they retrain and find other work, claiming the UK government's "complacent approach to this world-leading sector is putting livelihoods at risk"

The prime minister replied by saying the UK government was supporting artists through "these tough times" with £1.7bn worth of measures.

A further three people have died and 752 people have tested positive for coronavirus, Public Health Wales (PHW) said on Wednesday.

It means a total of 1,643 people in Wales have died with Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

The new cases take the total number of people to test positive in Wales to 27,624.

The total number of people tested in Wales is 573,542 with 545,918 testing negative.

PHW said 10,518 tests were carried out on Tuesday.

Twenty-one deaths and 127 people have tested positive for Covid-19 following an outbreak at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant.

Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board officials said they were also monitoring closely a number of cases at two other hospitals

There has been one death and 17 cases at Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil and a further death and 15 cases at the Princess of Wales of Hospital in Bridgend.

Medical Director Dr Nick Lyons said: “We are taking the outbreaks extremely seriously and the stringent and robust mitigating actions which have been taken across our sites are being closely observed.

“However, given the nature of coronavirus, there is an inevitable time delay in when we will see the positive impact of these measures.

“We apologise for the concern that this will cause to families and our communities.”

The board has set up a helpline for anyone with concerns on 01685 726464.

Image source, Google

Wales needs to prepare itself for "quite a difficult winter", the nation's chief medical officer has warned.

Dr Frank Atherton told a press conference that further restrictions could not be ruled out as cases rise.

"We are going to have to learn to live with it," he said.

Dr Atherton also said he hoped "most people in Wales don't take" US president Donald Trump "as their guide to how to deal with coronavirus".

The president, who returned to the White House after three days in hospital with the virus, called on followers not to be "afraid of Covid".

Image source, Getty Images

The Welsh Government should look to Scotland which faces tougher Covid restrictions due to a rise in cases, according to Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has already stressed the new rules will not signal a return to full lockdown, even for a short period of time.

Mr Price told BBC Wales: "Eyes today are on Scotland where this afternoon the Scottish government is announcing what's come to be known as the 'circuit breaker' with a significant ramping up of restrictions locally and possibly Scotland-wide as well.

"I think the latest figures from yesterday show more people in critical care in Wales than in Scotland, with more people hospitalised recently with Covid in Wales than in Scotland.

"The next few days is going to be critical because, at some point, we may need to pull that emergency cord, as the Scottish government has already decided to do."

Image source, Getty Images

The NHS may need to change its “planning assumptions” if the virus continues to spread.

Wales' chief medical officer Dr Frank Atherton said the reproduction number – the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to - is thought to be around 1.4 in Wales.

The Welsh Government’s technical advisory group has warned that unless the R number is brought back below one, infection incidence and hospital admissions "may exceed scenario planning levels".

Dr Atherton said:“It doesn't mean that the NHS will run out of capacity or PPE or anything.

"It just means that we need to change some of the planning assumptions, and health boards need to take account of that really."

Are you living in a locked down area and unsure about what circumstances allow you to leave your town or county?

About 2.3 million people living in 16 different areas in north and south Wales - a majority of the country's population - are living under tighter restrictions.

Those who enter or leave local lockdown areas without a "reasonable excuse" can be issued with a fine, prosecuted or find themselves in court.

But what counts as a reasonable excuse? Check our guide.

Image source, Reuters

Wales' chief medical officer Dr Frank Atherton said a suggestion by a worldwide group of scientists and health experts that protection against Covid-19 be focused on the vulnerable, while healthy people get on with their lives, would come "at a very significant cost".

The group, including dozens of UK experts, has said lockdown policies are having a devastating impact on physical and mental health as well as society.

But Dr Atherton said: "The idea of allowing the virus to transmit through the population is a difficult one because it would inevitably lead to more hospital admissions, ICU admissions and, ultimately, to death, so it would come at a very significant cost."

He said the other difficulty was that "we just don't know enough yet about the immunity which follows on from somebody having had a case of coronavirus".

"We do know that there are cases around the world where people have been infected more than once," Dr Atherton said.

"They're small numbers but we just don't know how long immunity will last."

Image source, Getty Images

Bangor in Gwynedd is under “active watch” following a rise in Covid-19 cases.

Speaking during a Welsh Government briefing, chief medical officer Dr Frank Atherton said the increase in cases there was related to the student population, and was being monitored carefully.

He warned that Gwynedd as a local authority area was being “considered” for local lockdown.

“An incident management team has been meeting on a daily basis up there and they are providing reports and suggestions into Welsh Government, so we’re looking at that quite carefully," he said.

Gwynedd has seen cases rise to 73.1 per 100,000 people in the past week, compared with 18.6 in neighbouring Anglesey.

Image source, Google

Hyperlocal lockdowns putting restrictions on individual towns are not being ruled out, the chief medical officer for Wales has said.

However, Dr Frank Atherton added that it “feels right” to stick to local authority boundaries when introducing new rules in response to increases in Covid cases.

Fifteen of Wales' 22 council areas are currently in lockdown, along with the town of Llanelli, in Carmarthenshire.

Speaking during Wednesday's Welsh Government briefing, Dr Atherton said: “We don't rule out more local arrangements, but local authority feels like the right democratic boundary to use for decision-making.

“The issue in Llanelli was that it was very much contained within the town itself as opposed to having broader community transmission.

“We have to take the circumstances of transmission - not just the numbers but actually the detailed information that we get from people on the ground into decision-making - as to what the right areas should be.”

Wales' chief medical officer has said a Covid vaccine could be available in the early part of next year but "not for everyone".

Dr Frank Atherton said there were "a number of promising candidates" for a vaccine which are "rapidly progressing" through research trials.

He said: "We hope that in the early part of next year we may well start to see vaccinations becoming available but it certainly won't be available to everybody immediately."

Dr Atherton said there will have to be "some prioritisation to think about, on how we protect the most vulnerable and how we protect our health care system".

He said health boards were doing "a lot of planning" on how they would deliver a vaccination programme.

There are no plans for extra so-called "circuit break" restrictions across Wales to coincide with schools' autumn half term, according to the chief medical officer.

However, Dr Frank Atherton told the Welsh Government press briefing: "We're not ruling out the need for further restrictions at the moment - we're not planning on those arrangements."

He said such questions were kept "under very close review".

"Our hope at the moment is that our local health protection arrangements, those local restrictions, will continue to lead to an improving situation.

"But certainly we don't rule that out [extra measures] and it may be that we need to think about further restrictions, but there's no plans for that, at the moment."

More older people are catching Covid-19, Wales' chief medical officer says.

The resurgence of the virus started with younger people, but it is moving into older age groups, Dr Frank Atherton told the Welsh Government's media briefing.

A total of 11% of cases in Cardiff were people aged over 60 in the first week of August, but by September that had risen to 16%.

"It is moving into the older population," he said.

"That worries us because we know that with age comes increased risk of serious illness and the need for hospitalisation and intensive care, and, of course, the mortality rate goes up.

"So we do worry about that and we watch that very carefully."

Local Democracy Reporting Service

A spike in coronavirus cases in Ceredigion has been blamed on students socialising on a beach.

A total of 18 cases has been confirmed in the last seven days in the county, which has had the lowest number in Wales since the pandemic began.

Council leader Ellen ap Gwynn said more cases were expected in the Aberystwyth area because of "students that have been enjoying themselves on the beach".

Ms ap Gwynn confirmed the latest cases had been confined to the university.

There could be a "rolling programme" of local restrictions across the country throughout the autumn and winter, Wales' chief medical officer has said.

Dr Frank Atherton's comments come as local restrictions already affect more than two million people in Wales

He told a Welsh Government briefing: "We are working on a plan about how we can relax these local restrictions as the incidence rates fall - and stay - below 50 cases per 100,000 people".

But he warned: "What we don’t want to do is to relax the restrictions, just to have to put them back in place immediately because cases of the virus shoot back up again.

"We need to be realistic about what could happen over the months ahead.

"We could see a rolling programme of local restrictions being put in place throughout the autumn and winter to help control the virus.

"Having a flexible policy of being able to move areas into and out of some form of local restrictions, depending on the level of transmission in the area, will help us to manage spikes in cases, while hopefully avoiding the pain of a national lockdown."

Wales' chief medical officer says there are a large number of Covid cases in "almost every part" of the country.

Speaking at the Welsh Government's coronavirus briefing, Dr Frank Atherton said: "In the space of just five short weeks, we’ve moved from a position of having very little coronavirus in Wales to having a large number of cases."

He said the local lockdown restrictions introduced in some areas in a bid to curb Covid "are working".

Dr Atherton said there were "two main reasons" for the restrictions, "to protect people’s health and to prevent the virus spreading further, either in the local community or beyond the borders to areas with lower coronavirus rates".

He said there had been "a small increase" in the number of people being admitted to intensive care in hospitals.