The Welsh Government has not ruled out imposing further lockdowns on Wales in the future but say that modelling suggests it won't be necessary.
Speaking after he announced several Covid restrictions would be lifted on Monday, Mark Drakeford was questioned about the threat posed by the India variant. There are 26 cases of the Indian variant in Wales on Friday, up from 17 on Thursday, and more than 1,500 cases in England, up from 700.
Modelling from Kent University suggests that if the India strain is spread more easily than the Kent variant (which devastated Wales in the early part of 2021) then there could be widespread hospitalisations by the end of the summer.
When questioned by WalesOnline at the Welsh Government coronavirus briefing, the First Minister said that other modelling was less bleak.
He said: "Our own modelling which is the modelling carried out by Swansea University, which is the model which we rely on most in Wales, suggests we are still expecting a third wave of coronavirus later in the summer.
"But we do not expect it to be other magnitude and cause the same levels of pressure on the NHS as we saw at the turn of this year and it wouldn't be of a sort or a level that would require us to go back into lockdown in the very blunt nature that we needed in spring 2020 or or or into the new year."
Despite this Mr Drakeford said he wouldn't rule out lockdowns in the future.
"I myself have never used the word irreversible when referring to the path that we are on out of coronavirus," he said. "I have said already today that the Welsh Government will continue to approach the whole business of unlocking in the cautious step-by-step way.
"If the evidence changes and new risks emerge that we need to take into account then that will have an impact on our ability to go on lifting restrictions. The impact on the NHS, and the ability of the NHS to go on resuming... treatment of non coronavirus patients and beginning to make inroads in the number of people who have been waiting because of coronavirus that will be very much at the top of our thinking as we take those difficult decisions about what lies beyond the next 3-weeks and the announcements I have already made."
In an interview with WalesOnline earlier today Mr Drakeford stressed that his main concern at present was the threat posed by the India variant which has sparked flare ups in areas of the north west of England. You can find more details on this here.
