Wales faces a “reasonable worst-case scenario” of a second wave of coronavirus peaking around Christmas according to latest modelling.
Data suggests Wales would see a new peak in late December, much earlier than England, just a month ahead of the typical annual spike in flu cases.
Fliss Bennee, co-chair of the Welsh Government’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG), told the Senedd’s Health, Social Care and Sport Committee on Tuesday: “Our reasonable worst-case scenario, and indeed the majority of our modelling, shows a peak at a different time [to England].”
Though both England and Wales have access to the same data and modelling around coronavirus not all of it can be applied to both countries equally.
“In the reasonable worst-case scenario for Wales we made use of a model that Swansea University have done for us using the Oxford model,” said Ms Bennee. “We start to diverge significantly from the UK model. Sage models for England but in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland it is very different from somewhere which has large population centres in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds which would otherwise skew our reaction to it.”
She added that using data from Swansea University a worst-case scenario peak in Wales could come “significantly earlier” than England at “the end of December for Covid”, which is a month ahead of annual flu cases spiking.
When Wales faced a spike in cases back in March health minister Vaughan Gething ordered all non-urgent NHS care to be cancelled to clear hospital capacity. This has left many people living in severe pain and discomfort with no idea when they will be treated.
Ms Bennee said these people were “pushed down the line” and that “direct harm of Covid must be carefully balanced” against the damage done by continuing to cancel these procedures when politicians consider the prospect of another national lockdown.
She said any such measure would need to be balanced against “an inability for people to access urgent and non-urgent care”.
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Her warning cames after a top surgeon said elective operations in Wales “really haven’t got going at all” in the period since the initial lockdown was eased.
These have included cancer operations, with some patients waiting more than five months for an operation the NHS would normally look to do in two weeks.
According to Richard Johnson, a consultant breast surgeon and director in Wales of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Welsh Government needs to take urgent action to create so-called “Covid-light” hospitals to start to work through the backlog with such settings able to keep running in the event of a second wave.
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Who are TAG?
The Technical Advisory Group advise the Welsh Government on policy in relation to coronavirus in Wales. When senior ministers in the Welsh Government say they are “following the science” these are the people they are listening to.
-- to www.walesonline.co.uk
