Covid: Concern at 'very serious' Conwy county cluster

A cluster of the Indian variant of Covid-19 is "very serious" and could affect the easing of restrictions in Wales, the health minister has said.

Eluned Morgan is "very concerned" the cluster in Conwy county is heading towards community transmission.

There are now 35 cases of the variant - renamed the Delta variant by the World Health Organization - in Llandudno, Llandudno Junction and Penrhyn Bay.

People have been urged to get tested, even if they do not have symptoms.

Betsi Cadwaladr health board has asked those without any Covid symptoms to get a lateral flow test at a mobile unit at Ysgol Awel y Mynydd in Llandudno Junction.

Those in the area who do have symptoms have been asked to attend Conwy Business Centre for a more accurate PCR test.

Conwy county now has the second highest Covid rate in Wales.

Updated figures on the spread of the Delta variant are expected to be published by Public Health Wales later this week.

The UK government has said up to three-quarters of new cases in England could be of the variant, which has been renamed Delta by the World Health Organization.

Baroness Morgan said the situation in Llandudno could affect further easing of restrictions across Wales.

"This is becoming very serious, we need to make sure that we try and nip this in the bud in that particular area and obviously all of this will play into how we assess the situation on Friday," she said.

"I don't think we'd define it quite yet as community transmission, but it's on its way to becoming that and that's why we really need people in the area to co-operate with us… to make sure that we can try and suppress this particular variant.

"The last thing we want to see is this spreading across the whole of Wales," she told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.

She said the 35 cases of the Delta variant had been identified through the Test, Trace, Protect scheme, which she said had been a "phenomenal success" throughout the pandemic and was being extended until March.

"We do know where those 35 people are and we are tracing their contacts," she said.

"It's been a highly successful programme so far. It's one of the key weapons in our arsenal in our efforts to curb the spread of Covid."

An additional £32m will go towards the scheme, which has reached 99.7% of all positive cases eligible for follow up since it was introduced last June, the Welsh government said.

Helen Alefounder, a GP in Conwy, said the potential for social mixing during half term was "slightly worrying".

"What's reassuring is we've isolated these cases, we know where they are and we can make sure that those patients are isolated and [we can] try and prevent the spread of the virus any further," she said.

"But it is half term... we've got a lot of visitors in Wales and we just need to make sure we're maintaining our social distancing and keeping to the rules because otherwise there will be an increase in cases. We don't want to go back to where we were a few months ago.

"It's really important for everyone to remember that this is still very real, the virus is still out there but we can prevent this. We can stop the cases from increasing," she said.

Conwy's Covid case rate is currently the 163rd highest in the UK.

For context, where we have had clusters in recent weeks - Bridgend, Newport and Monmouthshire - these have all eased off now and they never got beyond 30 cases per 100,000.

All, including Conwy, according to the most recent surveillance, have had raised numbers of under-25s; the Bridgend and Monmouthshire clusters were linked to schools in Porthcawl and Abergavenny.

Conwy breaks down into 15 communities. Three of these are among the 23 across Wales which have shown any positive test numbers greater than two in the past week.

The other 12 local areas are among the 94% in Wales with fewer than two cases in the last seven days.

The lag in test results being published means it will be a few more days before the Conwy cluster starts to show up properly in the figures. The county's case rate stands at just under 20 but it has been below the 50 cases per 100,000 threshold for two months.

During the second wave in January, Conwy reached 221 cases per 100,000. That is the third lowest peak of any local authority area of Wales, after Anglesey and Gwynedd.