Earlier lockdown could've saved more lives - inquiry hears

1. The UK Covid-19 inquiry is in Cardiff for the final of its three weeks to scrutinise the Welsh government's handling of the pandemic
2. Vaughan Gething, Wales' health minister for the first two waves of the pandemic, is giving evidence all day on Monday
3. Gething, a contender to be Wales' next first minister, says his missing WhatsApp messages being unavailable to the inquiry is a matter of real "embarrassment"
4. Gething says he regrets not keeping schools open for longer
5. Local lockdowns, which started in Caerphilly in September 2020, were the right things to try, Gething tells the inquiry
6. A total of 10,271 people in Wales have died due to Covid - with a further 2,299 deaths listing Covid as a contributing factor

Thank you for joining us

That's all for today, as Vaughan Gething's evidence comes to an end.

Thank you for following our live coverage, we'll be back tomorrow morning with more.

In the meantime, you can read a wrap-up of what happened today here.

Who will we hear from next?

After hearing from Vaughan Gething today, we’ll hear from Eluned Morgan, Minister for Health and Social Services for Wales since May 2021 and Rebecca Evans, Minister for Finance since 2018 and Local Government since 2021, tomorrow morning.

Jeremy Miles, the Minister for Education and Welsh Language since May 2021, will answer questions in the afternoon.

On Wednesday, Mark Drakeford will give evidence all day ahead of stepping down as Wales First Minister later this month.

Thursday will hear closing speeches as the Covid-19 inquiry’s Wales hearings come to an end.

What are the main points from today?

A long hearing comes to an end for Vaughan Gething as the Covid-19 inquiry grilled him on issues of the role of the Welsh devolved administration, Whatsapp messages and school closures.

Here’s a look at what we heard from the former health minister today:

• Gething said one of his regrets was not keeping schools open for longer
• He told the inquiry the first lockdown was “absolutely necessary” and an earlier start to the lockdown could have saved more lives
• Gething also talked about the need to consider a lot of different aspects of a crisis when governing and they could not just "follow the science"
• He told the inquiry that in December 2020 he told the first minister to tear up the current Covid Christmas plans
• A lack of information sharing from the UK-wide Department of Health as well as “not having the means” is how Gething explained the care home residents testing delay between England and Wales
• Earlier this morning he said it was a matter of “real embarrassment” that his WhatsApp messages were missing for a key period of the pandemic due to mobile phone maintenance
• Gething also set out his frustrations at the absence of Welsh government representation at meetings of Sage and the "strange" way in which Cobra meetings were run
• We’ve heard Gething talk about the former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “scatty, incoherent and rambling” Cobra meeting chairing
• Gething told the inquiry that more than 10,000 people in Wales died of Covid

Was Wales 'overly cautious' in opening back up?

Gething is asked if Wales was “overly cautious” when it came to opening businesses back up after the first Covid wave in the summer of 2000 - given that restrictions eased more quickly in the other UK nations.

“We were always trying to balance the competing responsibilities and the competing harms we had,” Wales' former health minister tells the inquiry.

“[We knew] each easing is likely to bring up the rate of transmission.”

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'I told first minister to tear up Covid Christmas plans'

Steve Duffy

BBC Wales

BBC

Vaughan Gething is asked about concerns coming from the NHS in Wales about a “tipping point” of up to 4,000 beds estimated to be in use during the second wave in January 2021 with Covid patients.

This would be more than half total hospital capacity, just with Covid patients.

By 15 December, there were already 2,000 patients with Covid in Welsh beds - and there were fears medical directors would not be able to cope, with community cases ending up in hospital.

Gething says he expected there would be people deeply upset at the prospect of more restrictions again but others would be relieved.

“We reached a decision on Christmas with some pain and not little effort," Wales' former health minister tells the inquiry.

"I start telling the first minister within days of that, I think the agreement you’ve just reached, you need to tear up.”

He admitted the cabinet on 15 December was split as well: “This was one of the few meetings, when Mark and I set out the case for two different courses of action.”

Gething says he set out the case for more intervention and Mark Drakeford set out the case for sticking with the agreement we’d reached.

Chipgate 'was within the rules', says Gething

Dominic Cummings’s notorious trip to Barnard Castle showed the difference between the Welsh and UK government’s approach, Vaughan Gething says.

“I don’t think it harmed the Welsh government and I think the contrast reflected positively on us in overall terms,” he says.

He is also asked about another example of alleged rule breaking, his own “Chipgate” incident, when he was photographed eating chips with his family while out for a walk.

Picnics were banned, but Mr Gething says the rules allowed people to buy and eat takeaway food while out for their daily exercise.

“The rules said you could buy takeaway food, eat that and move on,” he says.

“But once you start trying to explain all of that, you have people wanting to throw sand in everyone’s face.”

Gething previously denied changing rules to permit people to sit and eat while out exercising due to the row over the chips.

He tells the inquiry: “We wanted to make the rules easier to understand.”

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'Following the science' not always the best approach, says Gething

Hugh Pym

Health editor

A fascinating exchange earlier focussed on the much quoted slogan “following the science”.

Ministers early in the pandemic sought to reassure the public that they were always taking advice from experts before key decisions. But for Vaughan Gething “following the science”, with hindsight, had been the wrong approach at a key moment.

In the week beginning 9 March the possibility of the NHS being overwhelmed was dawning on ministers. In some parts of Europe football matches were being cancelled but officials in the UK advising ministers said there was no reason to ban outdoor sporting events.

The Welsh government did not pull the plug on the Wales versus Scotland rugby international due 14 March. Scottish fans were heading to Cardiff but there was still no intervention.

Gething said the advice from health officials was there was no clinical reason to suspend the game. By lunchtime the Welsh Rugby Union took its own decision to call off the game.

With hindsight, Gething said it would have sent out a strong signal to the public for the government to have announced a cancellation.

Asked about “following the science” he said ministers in reality had to balance a number of factors before taking the final decision.

WATCH: Gething admits missing WhatsApps 'embarrassing'

Covid inquiry: Gething admits missing WhatsApps embarrassing

Vaughan Gething says he regrets that his old WhatsApp messages are not available to the inquiry.

The pandemic health minister says: "It's a point of embarrassment and if I had been able to provide all of those records then I don't think that this would really be the issue that I understand it is for a number of people.

"WhatsApp wasn't used to make decisions," he reiterates.

Local lockdowns were 'right thing to try'

Steve Duffy

BBC Wales

Gething is asked about local lockdowns – which began in Caerphilly in early September 2020, following local rises in infections.

He says they led to an immediate impact “but didn’t mark a decisive turning back”. Most of country ended up in a local lockdown at some stage.

“It was the right thing to try to do them,” he adds.

He says jumping to another national lockdown too soon might have affected public support and compliance.

“While the public had been fantastic frankly, in dealing with a lot of significant interventions in their lives, to ask them to do that again in September, would have been challenging,” he says.

“We’d just got our children back to school.”

The politics were also “getting more difficult” within Wales and with the UK government.

By the start of October, there were warnings of rising infections and hospital admissions.

Gething admits in hindsight modelling of a fire break lockdown – done by Swansea University in mid October - could have been done earlier. He says there was a “fruitless course” of trying to get financial support from the UK government.

He tells the inquiry “the advice we got was looking seriously at two or three week lockdown options...and to take school half term, a natural break, into consideration”.

He concedes the benefits of that fire break “were certainly more short-lived than had been hoped for”.

BBC

'Bereaved families not impressed by Gething'

Gareth Lewis

Political Editor, BBC Wales

Holding your hands up can be a strength and it can be a weakness if you do it too much, especially when voting closes in three days to become next Welsh Labour leader and first minister.

So far Gething has expressed embarrassment and regret over lost WhatsApp messages; acknowledged an error in his written witness statement over whether there were imported cases of Covid in the UK; admitted Wales wasn’t as prepared as it could have been for the pandemic - and that there was not enough capacity to routinely test all care home residents and staff in early April 2020.

A decision not to call off the Wales v Scotland Six Nations rugby match also still "jars". (It was the WRU who postponed the fixture.)

Bereaved families I spoke to during the lunch adjournment were not impressed by what they had heard, even if there was a more conciliatory tone from Gething than at his previous hearing last year.

So how will today influence Welsh Labour party members who might still be undecided?

Gething’s rival for the top job, Jeremy Miles, appears before the inquiry tomorrow.

'Earlier lockdown could've saved more lives'

Daniel Davies

BBC Wales political correspondent

The lockdown on 23 March 2020 was unavoidable - but starting it a few days earlier might have saved more lives, Vaughan Gething tells the inquiry.

He says the Welsh Government would probably have agreed to a lockdown on 20 March had it been proposed in Cobra.

“I have thought about this a lot, not just in preparing for the inquiry but frankly because of having to live with all the choices you have made and seeing the consequences of them," Wales' former health minister says.

"I thought a great deal about this and I don’t think there was a way to avoid the first lockdown - I really don't.

"The timing of it could have been different potentially. A few days could have saved more lives, but I honestly can’t see there would have been a way to have avoided that lockdown.”

UK Covid-19 Inquiry

'You’re not just following the science'

The inquiry hears that on the weekend of 14 and 15 March 2020, the UK government had taken a “significant change of direction”, as there was “much more data on the likely impact on the NHS”.

This was communicated to Welsh ministers at a Cobra meeting on 16 March, and Gething is asked whether he was satisfied that suggested interventions had been taken on board.

Gething says there was “proper consideration” of potential direct harm, but when it came to indirect impact “it would be dishonest to try to claim that everything around that had been fully worked through” because “the picture was moving very fast”.

But by 22 March, a day after a planned Cobra meeting that didn’t go ahead, the Welsh government is starting to put motions in place for going ahead with a lockdown themselves, if needed, Gething says.

“This is more about the prime minister’s willingness to take the steps,” says Wales' pandemic health minister

“I think the real difficulty is not acting, because you can see harm that is taking place right in front of you.

“You need to take action, and then it takes time for that to feed through. You’re not just following the science, you’re a decision maker.”

We're back...

BBC

The inquiry returns after a short break and with the technical gremlins sorted for now.

Baroness Hallett expresses particular concern about any bereaved people who are watching online.

However, she stresses that the evidence session with Vaughan Gething has to finish today, so we must plough ahead.

Lockdown was 'absolutely necessary', says Gething

Gething says the mandatory stay at home order taking on 23 March was "absolutely necessary".

He said it was a question he had considered a lot since the pandemic.

The pandemic health minister says: "I don’t think there was a way to avoid the first lockdown, I really don’t.

"I don't think we could have justified non-acting at that point."

"The evidence had hardened significantly."

Gething regrets not keeping schools open for longer

Vaughan Gething tells the inquiry the Welsh government had the understanding that schools were part of transmission of the virus.

The former health minister says it was known: "That if schools closed it would be difficult to reopen them.

"Home isn’t a safe space for every adult. And home isn’t a safe space for every child."

Gething says: "Parents were anxious and fearful for their children, which is quite a rational thing for parents to consider.

"It's one of my regrets that we couldn't keep schools open for longer," he adds.

There was a disorderly closure of schools in Wales so the decision was made to close schools says Gething.

It was the right thing to do under the circumstances, he adds.

Why was Wales behind England in care home testing?

Gething is asked about the “13-day delay” between testing all care home residents - whether or not they had symptoms - in England, and the same policy coming in for Wales on 29 April 2020.

“It’s one of the areas where there was not the sharing of information between the Department of Health and others,” he says.

“Lots of things were going on at the time, [but] if the same information had been shared with us, instead of announced, we would have been in a different position. Because then what you were having to do was catch up with events.”

He says “not having the means” was also “a significant problem”, adding: “At the time I don't think we had the testing capacity. The testing capacity was needed for people with symptoms.

He says the delay was not down to capacity considerations, “because the knowledge wasn’t there”, but even if it had been there would not have been the capacity to implement the rollout at that point.

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Role of devolved administrations examined

Hugh Pym

Health editor

Key constitutional issues relating to the role of devolved administrations have once again been highlighted at the UK Covid public inquiry.

Vaughan Gething set out clearly his frustration at the absence of any Welsh government representation at meetings of the Sage scientific advisory committee in the early stages of the pandemic.

His point was that the committee was a “UK government construct” and that a broader remit would have strengthened the overall response.

Gething argued that “being in the room” would have let devolved nation representatives hear differing views rather than just being given the minutes.

The Cobra emergency committee, he argued, was not run efficiently with key papers supplied only 15 minutes before meetings.

The absence of Boris Johnson from early meetings was significant, said Gething, because it mattered who chaired them – if the prime minister was in the chair it would “bind” the UK Government to decisions and provide clarity – though he was critical of Johnson’s performance when he did attend the Cobra meetings.

There was also confusion till just before lockdown whether Westminster would legislate or existing public health powers could be used by the Welsh Government.

As the inquiry continues its hearings in Cardiff and next month in Belfast, questions over the UK’s constitutional arrangements at the time of an unprecedented health crisis will continue to be asked.

We're back after lunch...

Piranha Photography

I hope you enjoyed your sandwiches and we're back underway after lunch as Wales' pandemic health minister Vaughan Gething continues his day-long stint of giving evidence.

Just as a quck reminder to what the UK Covid-19 Inquiry is - it was launched by Boris Johnson, the UK's prime minister throughout Covid, to look into decision-making and handling of the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Inquiries respond to "public concern" about events and are established and funded by government - led by an independent chair.

In this case former judge and crossbench peer Baroness Hallett, who previously led the inquests into the 7 July London bombings, is in the chair.

Inquiries can demand evidence and compel witnesses to attend. No-one is found guilty or innocent, but conclusions are published. The government is not obliged to accept any recommendations.

The Covid inquiry began on 28 June 2022 and is in the final week of hearing evidence in Wales before heading to Northern Ireland.

There is no specific timescale for how long the inquiry will last but Lady Hallett does not expect the public hearings to run beyond summer 2026.

Question of pandemic preparedness

Owain Clarke

BBC Wales Health Correspondent

One of key questions this inquiry has returned to is how prepared the Welsh government was for a pandemic in the first place - and did it truly appreciate the scale of the Covid threat as evidence emerged in early 2020.

We heard that Gething, Wales' then health minister, thought a supply of PPE previously built up to deal with a potential flu pandemic would be sufficient to last six months.

In the end, stocks ran low much more quickly - and the inquiry has already been told there were fears the NHS in Wales were just days away from running out of certain items.

But perhaps the bigger question is - given multiple warnings from Public Health Wales - how quickly the Welsh government realised Covid would need a "whole government" response.

The inquiry's counsel suggests that the fact that the Welsh Cabinet didn't officially discuss Covid until the end of February proves those at the top didn't truly grasp the seriousness and potential consequences.

But Gething insists their early response was proportionate given the information it had at the time.

We should've advised to postpone rugby game - Gething

Daniel Davies

BBC Wales political correspondent

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About 20,000 Scotland fans travelled to Cardiff for the fixture in March 2020 - only for it to be called off the day before

Just before lunch, Gething concedes, in hindsight, he should have told Welsh rugby bosses to call off their Six Nations match against Scotland at the Principality Stadium in March 2020.

More than 20,000 Scotland fans were already in Cardiff when the Welsh Rugby Union announced it would be postponing Wales v Scotland which was due to take place the following day - despite medical advice saying it could go ahead.

WRU had asked ministers what they should do and Gething tells the inquiry: “We had the scientific advice that conclude that there was not the rationale to advise governments to cancel events.

“I don’t think it’s correct to categorise it as the WRU were left on their own as there had been a direct conversation with the CMO (chief medical officer).”

But he concedes: “It’s one of the choices I do think I would have made differently and that is the value and benefit of hindsight."