Sandifer says that, by the end of January 2020, he was "very very concerned" and was "looking for some urgency".

He adds that he was not in a position to tell health boards what to do and that this was something that then-NHS Wales boss Dr Andrew Goodall "could have done".

As we heard yesterday, First Minister Mark Drakeford's evidence to the inquiry said Covid was "not a top priority" for the Welsh government until late February or Early March.

Sandifer describes how "frantic" things were at Public Health Wales at the start of the pandemic.

He is asked if informal meetings with the chief medical officer during that period should have been formally recorded, after Dr Tracey Cooper told the inquiry yesterday that this wasn’t always the case.

"It would always be preferable if we could record the discussions that were taking place, but by the end of January I was in my office at seven o'clock in the morning," he says.

"And, with most of my team, rarely left before about nine or 10 o'clock at night. It was absolutely frantic.

"I barely had a moment to stop and take breath. I simply didn't have the time myself to record."

Image source, Covid Inquiry

First up today is Dr Quentin Sandifer, a consultant adviser for pandemic and international health for Public Health Wales.

PHW’s former medical director, Sandifer has held this role since the start of 2021, just under a year into the pandemic.

He previously worked as a consultant for Swansea Bay health board before rising to the role of director of public health - he joined PHW in 2012.

Today he will be quizzed on his role as adviser to PHW at a time when it was responding to the biggest health crisis in our lifetimes.

We can expect to hear from a good few witnesses today, depending on how brief each of their appearances are, they are:

• Dr Quentin Sandifer, pandemic adviser to Public Health Wales
• Shavanah Taj, general secretary of Wales' Trade Union Congress
• Dr Chris Llewelyn, boss of the Welsh Local Government Association
• Reg Kilpatrick, director general of the Covid Recovery and Local Government Group

Jack Grey
BBC Wales News

Good morning - it’s day three of week two of the UK Covid Inquiry’s foray into Wales’ handling of the pandemic.

Yesterday we heard from Dr Andrew Goodall, NHS Wales boss during the pandemic and now Wales' top civil servant, and Dr Tracey Cooper, chief executive of Public Health Wales.

Here’s what we learned:

• A mass testing centre was built in Cardiff without the Welsh government or Public Health Wales having any idea about it
• First Minister Mark Drakeford said in written evidence that Covid was "not a top priority" until after February 2020
• Wales' NHS bosses were not invited to early Covid Cobra meetings as there was a constraint on "attendance numbers"
• In written evidence, then-Health Minister Vaughan Gething said some of the PPE available in the early days of the pandemic was "not fit for purpose"
• Goodall said that, with hindsight, the discharge of vulnerable hospital patients into care homes "could’ve been targeted differently"

Stick with us today as we bring you all the key points from the hearing.