Covid: Lockdowns will not help Welsh NHS - ex-health boss

Covid lockdown restrictions should not be brought back to help NHS Wales deal with winter pressures, a former health boss has said.

Dr Roland Salmon, former director of communicable diseases for Public Health Wales, said he believed such rules were only "at best marginally" beneficial.

He said efforts should be redoubled to vaccinate those most at risk.

Latest hospital figures show a 20% rise in two weeks of patients with confirmed Covid, while bed occupancy has hit 90%.

Health Minister Eluned Morgan has said further Covid rules before Christmas are "unlikely" at the moment.

The latest figures show Wales' case rate hit a record high - 681.9 on Friday - although higher case rates have still produced relatively fewer hospital cases and deaths.

Blaenau Gwent has the highest case rate in the UK (1,185 cases per 100,000), with the climbing case rates in Wales mostly concentrated in south Wales. Four Welsh local authorities are among the highest, with south-west English counties also featuring prominently.

The Office for National Statistics estimated 70,300 people have Covid-19 in Wales.

This is the highest infection estimate since it started its weekly swab survey in August last year.

That is the equivalent of one in 45 people or 2.31% of the population.

Infections are estimated to be higher in school-age youngsters - and latest case figures also showed 27% of all positive tests were among the 10 to 19 age group.

Public Health Wales reported 11 further deaths - an average of eight deaths a day in the last week - although deaths were eight times higher at this point in the second wave.

The average number of confirmed Covid patients in hospital was 511 on Thursday, a 20% rise across Wales in two weeks. This is a third of the number we saw at the same point in January.

On Thursday, ahead of a difficult winter, the Welsh NHS recorded its worst performance figures ever.

NHS Wales chief executive Andrew Goodall said the system was running "at the hottest we've seen" due to Covid.

Speaking on BBC Radio Wales Breakfast, Dr Salmon said he was "certainly concerned about the pressure on the NHS" with staff shortages, high bed occupancy and Covid.

"However, one of my abiding hopes is that this doesn't lead to a re-imposition of wider social restrictions," he said.

"It doesn't seem to me that they actually worked the first time, or at best marginally in the short term."

He argued that such restrictions "cost a lot", not only financially but in terms of mental illness, domestic abuse, addiction, and delays to health treatment. "I feel that there have to be other approaches to this," he added.

Dr Salmon said it would be more efficient for people working in vaccination centres to try to prioritise vaccinating those over 60, or clinically at-risk groups who have not yet had their second Covid jab, rather than chasing younger people to get jabbed.

"Some 90,000 of those have not yet had their second Covid injections. Some even have not had their first," he said.

"It would be a much better use of our vaccinators' time to try and find and persuade these people to accept the vaccination, than chasing a lot of younger people, particularly 12 to 15-year-olds," he said.

Between 92.4% and 96.3% of those in age groups over 60 in Wales have received two doses of vaccine.

Dr Eilir Hughes, a GP on Anglesey, said it was important to encourage every eligible person to get vaccinated, without focussing on specific age groups.

"We should put the same effort into everyone. Whoever comes forward should be vaccinated. We should offer it to them," he said.

"Everyone can be a carrier, everyone can infect others. And that is what we are fighting here, we need to try and control it"

Office for National Statistics figures show that Covid accounted for 8.5% of all registered deaths in Wales, compared with with 6.6% of all deaths in England.

There were 253 deaths in September due to Covid, out of 289 which involved Covid in Wales.

It had been Wales' seventh leading cause of death in August.

Heart disease and dementia were the two leading causes of death in Wales in September, with flu and pneumonia ranked eighth.

It also found the mortality rate for deaths due to Covid in Wales last month was 89.6 deaths per 100,000 - significantly higher than the previous month and the highest rate since February.

But there were three health board areas with September mortality rates higher than the Welsh average - 122.5 per 100,000 in Cwm Taf Morgannwg, 115.1 in Swansea Bay and 107.8 in Betsi Cadwaladr.

There have been 7,267 deaths due to Covid in Wales over the 19 months.

There have been 322,591 Covid booster jabs given out in Wales, according to Public Health Wales.

Figures available for the first time show 58% of care home residents and more than 61% of healthcare workers have so far had a third dose of the vaccine.

Nearly 47% of those over 80 have also had it and already more than a quarter of those in their 70s.

Looking at the pace of the rollout in Wales, it appears that 59% of those eligible for a booster - six months and a week after their second dose - have had one so far in Wales.

Dr Dai Samuel, consultant hepatologist at Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, described the situation in hospitals as "extremely busy".

"It feels like December and January time already," he said. "That's the big concern really that we're going into this second winter, where everything is really up in the air at the moment."

He also said finding beds for patients was a "big challenge" in hospitals.

Latest bed occupancy figures are more than 90% and Wednesday saw more patients in acute hospital beds than at any time over the pandemic.

Dr Samuel said many feel the best capacity for occupied hospital beds would be 85-90%, whereas he said the health board's hospitals were "always running" at 95-99%.

"A few of my colleagues have already been off sick with burnout, I certainly feel pretty burned out myself," he added.

Wales' Health Minister Eluned Morgan has pleaded with the Welsh public to "play their part" in keeping the virus at bay.

"As the head of the NHS has said, it's going to be the toughest winter ever in the history of the NHS," she said.