Face coverings to be mandatory in shops and supermarkets in Wales from Monday

The wearing of face coverings will become compulsory in shops and closed public spaces in Wales from Monday, first minister Mark Drakeford has announced this morning.

Mr Drakeford told BBC Breakfast: “We said in our lockdown plan back in August that if coronavirus reached a certain threshold, in Wales, we would revisit our advice on face coverings.”

“From today for the first time, we will get to a point where 20 people in 100,000 in Wales are suffering from coronavirus.”

“That’s the threshold we use for people to have to quarantine coming back into the UK and having reached that threshold today we will be making the use of face coverings mandatory in shops and enclosed public spaces in Wales.”

If the figure falls in the future and the viruses, effectively suppressed below that 20 threshold then once again we will be able to revisit that advice.”

The first minister said: “Lots of people in Wales do choose in any case to use face coverings when they are out and about, what they will see now is that it will be compulsory for people to do that in shops.

That will happen from Monday to give those people who haven’t got face coverings already a chance to get hold of them.”

“We’re doing it on a precautionary rather than a reactive basis, we’re doing it as part of a sequence of measures to try to stem the rise in numbers here in Wales before they become very serious.”

There will be signage, there will be policing, but that is the last resort, we want to educate, to inform, to persuade and people in Wales have been so willing to play their part in keeping one another safe. I’m confident that we will see good levels of compliance in Wales.” He said.

Later to BBC Radio Wales the First Minister said, “Scotland and England, have both had mandatory face coverings for some weeks now and the position in both of those countries is worse than it is in Wales and getting worse faster than it is in Wales. So, I think sometimes people talk about face coverings as though they were some sort of magic wand. They’re not, they are at this point in time, a sensible addition to the precautionary measures we are taking”.

First Minister Mark Drakeford doing the media rounds this morning ahead of a 12:30pm briefing.

The First Minister will confirm changes to the rules on meeting people indoors to help prevent the spread of coronavirus in Wales at the today.

The changes come as parts of Wales have seen an increase in cases of the virus linked to people meeting and socialising with others indoors but without social distancing.

From Monday, a new limit of six people will be introduced on the number of people who can meet indoors at any one time. All six must be connected by belonging to the same extended household group.

There will be no change to current rules which allow up to four households to form an exclusive extended household in Wales, and no change to the rules on meeting outdoors.

England has already announced that from 14 September, the legal maximum number of people from different households that can meet will be six people.

In Scotland, a maximum of six people from two households will be able to meet (children under 12 not included) also from 14 September.

The full details, and any other restrictions or unlocking, will be announced at the lunchtime briefing. BBC One Wales, S4C and others will carry most of the briefing live, however if you wish to view a full unrestricted feed check the @WelshGovernment twitter account for the live video stream they will be publishing.