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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Ruth Mosalski

When Wales is expecting the peak of the Omicron wave

The new Omicron variant has arrived in Wales and is causing real concern with four cases already found and many more expected.

Wales' health minister has already said that she expects the current four cases to rise to "hundreds if not thousands". And, speaking at the Welsh Government's weekly briefing on Tuesday, Eluned Morgan said that experts expect cases to rise rapidly and peak towards the end of January in Wales.

"I think we also need to make it clear that we are expecting a significant wave of Omicron to hit Wales. The modelling suggests that that will reach its peak by around the end of January. Which is why there is an urgency in terms of getting people's vaccinations and their boosters done as soon as possible.

"What we know is that a small reduction in the effectiveness of the vaccine could have a significant impact on the NHS if we literally saw hundreds of thousands of people being affected by Omicron."

Read more: Health minister Eluned Morgan gives an update on Omicron and booster jabs - live

"So it's about the numbers of people who who will be affected and it only takes a small change in the effectiveness of the vaccine which we still don't know for it to have a significant impact on our NHS."

At a press conference on Tuesday lunchtime, Welsh Government urged people to get their vaccines and said it would be offering all eligible adults a jab by the end of January.

The Welsh Government says health boards will meet its target by providing more vaccination centres in easy-to-access locations, including walk-in and drive-through clinics with longer opening hours.

They have asked for the military to help while GPs and community pharmacies will continue to deliver the vaccine and local government, fire services and students will provide other support to clinics.

You can see the impact a rise in cases could have in this graph:

Wednesday marks the one year anniversary of the first Covid-19 vaccination was administered in Wales.

It is a year today since Margaret Keenan became the first person in the world to receive a Covid-19 jab as part of a mass vaccination programme, but around one in 10 eligible people in the UK - 6.4 million - remain unvaccinated.

Across the four UK nations, Scotland has the lowest proportion of eligible people who are still unvaccinated (9%), followed by Wales (10%), England (11%) and Northern Ireland (14%).

New data published which covers the 24-hour period up to 9am on December 6 shows the total number of deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test in Wales now stands at 6,441.

There were also 2,107 new positive cases recorded in the latest update bringing the total number since the pandemic began to 525,225.

The latest seven-day infection rate across Wales, based on the cases for every 100,000 people (for the seven days up to November 29) now stands at 493 – a rise from the 484.2 reported on Monday.

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