 On Friday of last week, I explained the very serious situation we are facing in Wales, and asked once again for your help in bringing the coronavirus under control. I also said to you that I would report to you about the discussions we have held over the weekend. Those discussions have shown that once again there are no easy choices in front of us, as the virus spreads rapidly in every part of Wales. We know that if we do not act now, it will continue to accelerate, and there is a very real risk that our NHS would be overwhelmed. The number of people being taken to hospital with coronavirus symptoms is growing every day. Our critical care units are already full, and we are asking our healthcare and social care staff who have already done so much to work even harder. Unless we act, the NHS will not be able to look after the increasing number of people who are falling seriously ill, even with the extra 5,000 beds that we have available for this winter. And most starkly of all, even more people will die from this deadly virus. And if that is the position, then we would have to take even more extreme measures to bring the virus back under control. We would be looking at an open-ended national lockdown, such as the one we had in March of this year. Now over the weekend, the Cabinet of the Welsh Government met to continue our discussions about a time-limited firebreak, a short, sharp shock to turn back the clock, slow down the virus, and give us more time. We met again this morning, and we have now reached the difficult decision to introduce a two-week firebreak, starting at 6pm on Friday this week. The firebreak period will then include the half-term holiday and cover the weeks ending on Monday, the 9th of November. This firebreak is the shortest we can make it, but that means that it will have to be sharp and deep in order to have the impact we needed to have on the virus. Between Friday, the 23rd of October, and the 9th of November, everyone in Wales will be required to stay at home. This means working from home wherever that is possible, and the only exceptions will be critical workers and jobs where working from home is simply not possible. All non-essential retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism businesses will close just as they had to during the March lockdown. Community centres, libraries and recycling centres will close. Places of worship will be closed for normal services other than for funerals or wedding ceremonies. As the virus has taken hold, we have said repeatedly at the Welsh Government that children would be our top priority if further restrictions were needed and that education must continue. So, as a result over this period, childcare facilities will stay open. Primary and special schools will reopen as normal after the half-term week. Secondary schools will reopen after the half-term, but for children in years seven and eight only. Other students who are taking examinations will be able to attend for them, but all other students will continue their learning from home for that extra week. Universities will continue to provide a blend of in-person and online learning. In the same way as we are requiring everyone to stay at home, students will also have to stay at home in their university accommodation. Now coronavirus spreads when people are in close contact with one another and especially indoors. To help break the cycle of transmission, there will be no gatherings with people you do not live with, either indoors or outdoors during this two-week period. They will continue to be an exception for adults living alone and single parents who will continue to be able to join with one other household for support. Now, as a cabinet, we are acutely aware of the impact that a circuit breaker period will have on businesses, so I wanted to turn next to the package of financial support that will be in place to assist businesses through this challenging period, and we'll make sure that the full details of the package are available throughout this week. But I can confirm today that we have created an extra economic resilience fund of almost £300 million. We have put an extra £150 million into phase 3 of the ERF to support those businesses directly affected by the firebreak. Every business covered by the small business rate relief will get a £1,000 payment, and small and medium-sized retail, leisure and hospitality businesses, which have to close, will receive a one-off payment of up to £5,000, and those payments will come to those businesses automatically. There will also be an additional discretionary grant and support for small businesses who are struggling because of the restrictions that we have to impose on them. Beyond that, the £80 million fund we announced last week to help businesses develop in the longer term will be increased to £100 million, and there will be a £20 million ring fence sum within that £100 million for tourism and hospitality. We know that businesses will need this support quickly. The funds will open in the first week of the firebreak, and we will work to get that money allocated as quickly as we can to those businesses who need it. All businesses required to close will also be able to access the support available from the UK Government through the existing job retention scheme or the new expanded job support scheme. I understand the very real challenges that this presents for Welsh businesses. It is why I wrote to the Chancellor on Friday to ask him to give Welsh businesses early access to the new expanded job support scheme from Friday of this week. That would remove the need for businesses to juggle the job retention scheme and the job support scheme during this firebreak period. Given the urgency we have offered to pay the extra costs that would be involved in that from Welsh Government funds to help businesses retain staff. But it is only the UK Government that has the financial power to guarantee the levels of income support workers need, and we need more generous payments to help workers through this crisis. Now, both I and my Cabinet colleagues are absolutely aware of the demands that we are making of our fellow citizens here in Wales, as we ask everyone to stay at home and require businesses to shut. Of course, we are all tired of coronavirus and the many rules and regulations with which we have to live our lives. We all want to see an end to this pandemic and our lives returned to us once again. Unfortunately, we do not yet have a vaccine which will allow that to happen, and a firebreak period is our best chance of regaining control of the virus and avoiding a much longer and much more damaging national lockdown. The window we have within which to act is only a small one, and to be successful, we need everybody's help. Here in Wales, this is the moment to come together, to play our part in a common endeavour, to do everything we can together to protect the NHS and to save lives. If we do this, our health service will be able to care for people with coronavirus and everybody else, those people who need emergency treatment, those people who need treatment for cancer, those people suffering from strokes or from heart disease. That will be possible provided we take this opportunity, and most importantly of all, it will save people's lives. Of course, this will not be easy, but if we act together, we can succeed. Once again, diolch o galon i chi gyd am popeth chi'n gwneud. Thank you all so much for everything you have already done, and for everything that you will do over the weeks to come. Together, we can still keep Wales safe. I'll take some questions now, of course, from journalist colleagues and all the answers as ever will be broadcast live on the Welsh Government's social media channels. First of all, it's afternoon to Adrian Masters of ITV Wales. Thank you, First Minister. Can you guarantee that this lockdown period will end on the 9th of November, or might it be extended? The period will end on the 9th of November. It is a fixed period and will end on that Monday. Adrian, can I make one other point? For the avoidance of doubt, we will not see the benefit of this two weeks by the 9th of November. The benefit will be seen in the weeks that follow, so I've heard some people say, oh, the figures won't be down by the 9th of November, so the period will have to continue. That is not the test to set. We know now that we will not see the benefit within the two weeks of the firebreaker period. So the period will end on the 9th of November, and we will see the advantages it will bring to us in the impact it will have beyond the firebreak period itself. I see. Thank you. You mentioned a ban on gatherings. Can I ask two related aspects of that? How will you enforce the no gatherings rule during Halloween and bonfire nights? Perhaps more importantly to a lot of people, what about Remembrance Sunday, which occurs just before the end of this period? Once again, to be completely clear with people, the rules, the law, as it will apply in Wales, will not allow for bonfire gatherings or for gatherings for Halloween. In this extraordinary period, we all have to do everything we can because every little action that we take to work together will make a difference, and I think it will be self-policing because people will recognise this, and it will be very obvious if people try to break the law. There will be an exception for Remembrance Sunday. Those organised events that local authorities with the British Legion and other partners have already organised for the Sunday, the 8th of November, where we mark that national sacrifice seems to be more important than ever that we do that at a period where further sacrifices are being asked of us all. So those organised events, small in scale, very different to previous years, will be able to go ahead, but those are the only gatherings that will be an exception during the two-week period of the firebreak. Adrian, thank you very much. I'll go to James Williams of BBC Wales. Thank you very much, First Minister. Can I get the answers in English and Welsh, please? You talked about the firebreak being the best chance of regaining control of the virus. What do you intend to do during that two and a half weeks to put plans in place to ensure that you don't again lose control of it over the following months? Are we talking about changes to the testing system who gets tested? Are there going to be more rules around contact tracing as the £500 payment for people who are self-isolating started? What about fines? Are these the kinds of things that need to be in place now for the next few weeks? Well, James, thank you for that. And I think all of the things that you mentioned are indeed part of the prospectus for the two weeks. We will use those two weeks very purposefully. We will use it further to strengthen our TTP system, recruiting more staff, allowing people to catch up on the huge volume of contacts that have had to be contacted and traced over recent weeks. We will allow our NHS to accelerate plans for deployment of field hospitals, as but he said in Cumtav Morganog already, accepting patients over the weekend and again today. We will provide a £500 payment to people who are asked to self-isolate and who live on very low incomes. And we will review and regularise the different fixed penalty notices that have been introduced over the six months of coronavirus to make sure that they are fair, that they are proportionate, that they have a continuity of approach underlying them. So, there are a whole series of things that we will use this period to carry out, so that we can out of it better prepared for the difficult winter that still lies ahead. So, just the way we need to do, a cofnod, a cofnod clóneu o'r toriad tan, am perpasai pwysig, i gweithio ar y system profi ac olorau, ni'r acuciomwy o staff, i roi amser, i gwasanaethau iechyd i paratoi am y capacity ychwanegol, a ni'n isio tyni i fewn am y gaya, a i'n edfwy i tyni capacity na lan. Ni'n mynd i edrych ar y system cospis i ddani i bobl ti ddim yn cydymfyllfio gyda'r rheoliadau ac i roi anaelau a taliad o pym gantog bennau ni'n isio roi i bobl a ble ni'n ofyn iddyn nhw i chi'n ananasu a ble dwi'n mynd i'n digon o arian dan nhw a am y cofnod anna. So, mae ni'n feir o bethau a ni'n mynd iddyfnyddio y cofnod i wneud, ni'n isio dod mas o'r y cofnod toriad tan mewn ffordd mewn lle, ni'n gallu, neu'n popeth, neu'n gallu, neu'n iddyfnyddio i wneud a oedd nosai anodd a gaya sy'n dal i fod o flaenu. Very much. You've, as a Government, have continuously talked about the needs to implement proportionate actions. Can you explain why it is proportionate for areas that aren't currently even in local lockdown? I'm thinking of areas like Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire where the numbers are pretty low. Why is it proportionate for them to be taking part in a national lockdown at the moment? And what does Wales look like the other side of this firebreak? Will there be much tighter national restrictions across the board short of lockdown? Well, the reason that we have decided on an all Wales firebreak is partly because the gap between those parts of Wales where we've not yet needed local lockdowns and local lockdown areas has been narrowing. Numbers are significantly up in a whole series of those areas and it simply makes sense. This has to be a national effort. It has to be an effort in which every single person and every single part of Wales makes a contribution. Many parts of Wales have acted to protect those further west and north areas where the virus has been in slower circulation. We now need to ask everybody wherever they live to make their contribution and however small that will be, those contributions add up and together they make the difference we need to make. And that will be important for people who live in the far west, in Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion and in Gwynedd, as it is for the rest of Wales and that's why we are going to ask every citizen wherever they live to make that contribution. And there will be a regime of course when we emerge from this on the 9th of November and we will work hard over the coming days to design that regime so that it builds on everything that we think we can achieve during the firebreak period. But today I'm concentrating to make sure that people have the best chance of understanding and knowing what is coming to us all on the firebreak period itself. There will be further things to say and I'll be back at this podium no doubt on Friday of this week looking further ahead. But for today and for the rest of this week we will be focusing on those two weeks, what it means for people in their daily lives, in their family lives, in their business lives, in their children's lives as well, then they will come the moment when it is right to say more about what lies ahead. Si'n fwynydd hwnna'n gymraeg neu? Yeah, sorry if you couldn't help me. Yeah, okay. Well, so just either way, ni'n ofen i bob un o hwn o ni, ym bob rhan o Gymru, i'n neud cyfraniad yn yr amser a anod o'r cyfnod clwbyr. A ag y bwlch rŵn, ar awdododau lleol, dan cyfanyadau lleol ac awdododau lleol ble y cyfanyadau naddwym yn aile, mae hwnna wedi dod â'n agosa a atau gilydd. A dyna pam ni'n mynd i ofyn i bobl angerydigion sy'n ben fwrw, a led led cymru. I'n neud y roi, y cyfraniad mae'n nhw'n gallu neud, i ar ymdrech gennydd leithol, a ni'n ishe weld. Dyna y ffordd i ni llwyddio, a dyna pam i'n ofyn i bob un o hwn o ni, i cymryd a rhan. Ac yn y dros y peddefnos, bod ni'n mynd i gweithio oedd cwrs ar rheoliadau sy'n mynd i fod mewn grym ar ôl yn awfed o tachwedd. Ond yn yr wrthnos yma, ni'n ganw'l bwyntio ar beth sy'n mynd i digwydd yn y cyfnod o toriad tan. A jyst i, ysbonio i bobl beth bydd ar effaith hwnna, yn y bobl wedi bobl, yn y byd busnes, yn anysgolion, bydd ar amser yn dod o'r cwrs, ac pan bydd yn poesi i esbonio beth sy'n mynd i ddod ar ôl y toriad tan, ond hefyd i'w ddim yr amser i'n ei ddhanu. Yn ymgyrch, James, rwy'n gobeithio i'r Tessa Chapman yn ffif nhw. Thank you, First Minister. You talk about asking for a national effort from people in all corners of Wales. I wonder, are you also talking to people in England who work or have families in Wales? Would it be your hope that the rest of the UK falls in line with this circuit breaker? Well, thank you very much, Tessa. Of course, our families and our friends in other parts of the United Kingdom matter to us hugely. People who are critical workers, who work on either side of the border, will be able to continue to work even during this firebreak period. So, I just want to be clear with all our colleagues about that. My national party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has been advocating a two-week firebreak across the whole of the United Kingdom, and he does that because that was the recommendation to the UK Government from SAGE. It is the recommendation to the Welsh Government from our Chief Medical Officer, our Chief Scientific Advisor and from our own Technical Advisory Group. They are unanimous in saying to us that difficult as it is, this is the best chance we have of getting back on top of the virus and to turn it back to a position where it is lower and slower for the rest of the period up to Christmas. We're taking that advice and I fully understand why people urge the same course of action elsewhere in the UK. Would you tell us a little bit more about what enforcement will look like? Are you expecting to see more police on the streets? Are you expecting regular border checks too? Can I say to all the people who are listening and to the people that you will know that if we have to rely on the police and enforcement agencies to make a success of this period, we will not succeed. We succeed by people asking themselves not what can I do, trying to find ways of getting round the rules, but what contribution can I make? What part can I play in making this period work for Wales? And if we think that the answer is that we've got to rely on environmental health officers and police officers to make this work, we really will not be doing what we need to do. So, of course, our police service will be there where they need to. Our environmental health officers will be able to concentrate on these simpler and stricter set of rules. But the real way they work is not by expecting other people to take responsibility, but by each one of us taking responsibility and each one of us asking, what can I do to make this a success? How can I cut down to the barest minimum the contacts that I have with other people to make a firebreak in the way this virus is currently accelerating away from us here in Wales? Thank you very much. I'll go to Mark Hutchins at Five Live. Thanks very much. Can I first of all clarify what the situation is about exercise? And more generally, you yourself have repeatedly said that the main source of cases have been from indoor household gatherings, and yet you're closing down law-abiding businesses. You're stopping people from gathering outside. So, aren't you targeting the wrong people? And those who've been abiding by the rules will now have to abide by stricter ones. Those who've been ignoring the rules may well carry on ignoring them. Well, the position on exercise is that people will be able to leave their homes for exercise. That exercise needs to start and end at your home because this is a stay-at-home regime. We are not returning to saying to people that they can only exercise once during the day, and that is because of our concerns for those families who have members who need to be able to exercise more than once in order to sustain a regime of the sort that we are asking everybody to abide by. The second question you posed to me I think is simply the wrong question. The question is not why is this not closing or why is that having to close? Every single contribution that is made to bearing down on the virus during these two weeks is important. Some of them may seem marginal, but when you add all those little bits together, then collectively they can make the difference. That is why this has to be strict and deep in order to make it as short as possible. Everybody has to play their part. The majority of people in Wales want to do the right thing and the huge majority of people in Wales do the right thing every day. In this period everybody must do the right thing because if you don't, then it is other people's lives, other people's futures that you will be putting at risk. You have outlined certain financial packages. People will wonder whether they will be enough. On five live earlier today we heard from Kelly who runs a beauty salon in Bridgend. She is on Friday is due to finish her second period of close contact isolation. She will now have to close down again and fears her business may go under. She hasn't had wages for two months now. How do you reassure the likes of Kelly that this is a price worth paying financially and mentally for a strategy that may not work? Well the assurance that I can give is that we have worked really hard over the last few days to bring money together from across the Welsh Government to provide the most generous package of help that we can to businesses in Wales to get them through this two week period. For many businesses that will be automatic help, they won't have to apply for it. It'll come to them through local authorities in the way that I described. For those who need more help than that there are further funds that we've announced today as part of this package of £294 million that is designed to make sure that businesses who are affected by the two week period get the help that they need and I can assure you that you know the impact on businesses weighs very heavily indeed in the difficult decisions that we have made but it is no help to businesses if the virus is in such circulation that people like Kelly find themselves continually having to self isolate because they come into contact with more and more people who are suffering from coronavirus. This is not a choice between no harm to business and this harm to business. It's the choice between the harm to business that will undoubtedly come and is coming already as Kelly told you from the way in which the virus is impacting on people's lives. We think that this is the better way to protect businesses as well as lives and that's why we'll mobilise the level of help that will be available to businesses in every part of Wales. Dosawn i Adam Hale on PA. Much of what you've announced today has been in the public realm over the weekend from printed correspondence from unions and councils after on Friday you said you had nothing to share but what was being proposed for the country. You and your ministers have been at pains during the pandemic promoting how open and transparent you've been with us but if the public are learning about things which will impact their lives from leaked letters and Twitter posts first rather than from the mouths of ministers can you forgive some for thinking that there's something a bit off with this brand of transparency? Well I am disappointed of course that people who have been involved in conversations with the Welsh Government helping us to shape a package that was not finalised until 11.30 this morning should choose to then share those conversations in a way that was not originally intended. It's a risk you run Adam. The way that I want to shape these very difficult decisions is by drawing in the people who will be affected by them and who will have to help us to provide services during the period and of course almost everybody respected the nature of those conversations and I'd rather take the risk in the end that some people will not understand the rules that we were all operating by and to have those conversations. I could have, it would have been possible not to have consulted anybody beyond the Welsh Government itself and then to have simply sprung it all on people this morning. That would not have been fair I think to our local authorities who are working so hard. It would not have been fair to our police services. It would not have been fair to people who have to run public transport during this period and others. So the choice we made was to have those conversations, to have them not when decisions had been made but to have them while the decisions were still being thought through and a large number of things that we have now resolved are resolved because those people have raised those issues with us. What will we do about this? What will we do about that? Those conversations have been very valuable and disappointed that some people thought that the right thing to do was to share them beyond those circles while the decisions were still in the making. As soon as they have been made my first port of call has been to come here to answer your questions and to report to the people who are the most important people of all, the people in Wales who will be affected by them. You mentioned on Friday that after a short shop lockdown you'd look at introducing a new set of national measures for the whole of the country. Are you able to give us some detail about what you're proposing here? No, not able to do that today. Confirm as I said on Friday that there will be a different regime as we leave the firebreak period. But for today and for this week I want to concentrate on explaining to people what the firebreak period itself will mean, the help that will be available to people, the impact on schools, the impact on businesses and so on. They will come at a time and it won't be many days away when we will begin to describe what will happen once the period is over. But I think it is one step at a time in camera draw and for today the step is about explaining to people today's decision and then we will move on to address the genuine and very important issues that you have raised but they are for later in the process while people are still absorbing the changes that all of this will mean for them from Friday of this week. Adam Defvoud over to Andy Davis at Channel 4. First Minister, are you providing enough support for employees, particularly those likely to be affected today who are on the minimum or national living wage and does this do enough to help those businesses who aren't, not just those who are having to close down but also those in the supply chain? Thank you, Andy. So, look, the first question is really a question for the UK Government. It is the UK Government scheme that helped people with wages. I set out in my statement how we have tried to persuade the Chancellor to simplify that for people in Wales. At the moment businesses would have to apply for one sort of help in the first week in a different scheme in the second week. We think that can be avoided but the money that comes directly to support people with employment costs comes from the UK Government as it has throughout the coronavirus period. We have recognised that. I have always said that we recognise just how much has been done. We think more could be done and should be done. I have been listening carefully to the debate with my colleague Andy Burnham in Manchester and agree with some of the points that he has been making. Our support is there to help businesses with all the other costs that they incur and they will not have an income over these two weeks to help them with those costs. Is it enough? Well, I am sure there will be people who would look for more. All I can say is that we have brought together the largest sum of money that we are able to provide. That we have designed the system in a way that people will get that help automatically and that they will be help particularly for supply chain companies in the way that you have suggested over and above what other firms will be able to claim from us. Our aim absolutely is to make sure that businesses who have a successful future are supported both through this two week period of firebreak but throughout the whole of the rest of this year so they are there to resume being successful businesses when conditions allow in 2021. Can I just ask you to clarify the position regarding outdoor sports which is so valuable to physical and mental well-being and so difficult to judge the effect that that can have. Are you saying that children can go to school up to year eight and mingle indoors but they can't walk to their local rugby club outdoors to play sport together? Is that is that the position and if so what's the logic in that? That is the position and the logic is the one that I have already gone over. This will never work if what we get is a stream of questions that says why isn't there an exception for this? Why isn't there an exception for that? That is not the way in which a circuit break, firebreak period will work. But you've already built in exceptions First Minister. You already have certain exceptions within the setup. We have a minimum number of exceptions that are necessary to allow our society to keep functioning. If we were to say to key workers, doctors, nurses, social workers, that they couldn't go to work then the services on which we all depend would evaporate. So there are inevitably a small number, but the aim in a fire break period is to make that the minimum number, to make it the absolute exceptions that you have to make, not to be asking ourselves how could we add to the exceptions? Why can't we do this? Why can't we do that? If we approach it in that way it simply will not work. Every single thing that we cut down on, however small it may be, will help to make a difference. And that will have to include outdoor sports of the sort that you asked. Because it's always possible to make a case for something on its own. But that is to miss the point of a firebreak period. Andy, thank you. Over to Will Haywood at Wales Online. Thank you First Minister. On the rules allowing people who live alone to bubble up with another house, does that apply the same as under the recent lockdown restrictions in that someone can only form a bubble with someone within their local authority? Or now this is a national lockdown can a single person bubble up with someone anywhere in Wales or perhaps even with another household in England if they happen to live on the border? They will be able to form a bubble with a household beyond their own local authority boundary. This is the only way in which this national approach is slightly more generous than the local lockdown system. So a single adult household, a single parent household, will be able to form an alliance with one other household and it will no longer have to be within the local authority boundaries where that person is living. Thank you. And throughout the summer you said it can take up to three weeks to see if changes you've made to restrictions have actually made a difference. What if we get to the end of this firebreak and cases are still going up? Under any circumstances would you extend extend the firebreak or are you ruling that out categorically right now? I'm ruling it out well and I think it is quite likely that we will come to the end of this period with numbers still rising. Because you will not see the impact of a firebreak period during the firebreak period itself. People who are going to need hospital treatment are already falling ill and it will take a while before the nature of that illness requires them to be in a hospital bed. So it's really important I'm clear with people the test for the success of a firebreak period is not are the numbers falling by the time the period is over. Those numbers will start to fall in the two weeks after the two week firebreak not during it. So it will end on the 9th of November. Thank you. Thanks. Well over to Dan Rivers at ITN. First Minister what would you say to businesses in seaside results like Barry where I'm filming today who have had a torrid time this year they've missed out on so much trade and now they're again being forced to miss out on the half-term trade their last chance they say before the winter sets in. Well of course if they are in Barry then they would already be covered by local lockdown restrictions so the difference in the circuit brick for Barry is pretty marginal but more generally the message to businesses in the tourism industry is I absolutely recognise the torrid time that those businesses have had. I'm very glad we were able to work with those businesses so that they will reopened for the school holiday periods during the summer but that business is equally affected as any other part of Welsh life by the fact that we have over 800 people already in hospital beds in Wales because they are suffering from coronavirus and that that figure is 20% higher than it was just a week ago and that we already see over this weekend some of those people now needing critical care beds because they are so ill nothing can be an exception to the need for the national effort that we are asking people to make and we will provide specific help for the tourism and hospitality industries during this two-week period in recognition of the additional difficulties that this will cause to them. What's your message to people in England who have got a holiday booked here who might still think well they'll come in their camper van or their caravan or they'll go and stay in an Airbnb cottage. What's your message to them? I'm afraid my message to them is they must not come. The rules in Wales will be that you must stay at home and that does not allow people to travel to holiday destinations or to go touring around in camper vans. The rules that apply to people in Wales will have to apply to people outside Wales as well so regrettable as it is and much as we look forward to welcoming people from outside Wales back to Wales again this is not the time to do it. We will need your help as much as we will need the help of people who live here in Wales. Dan thank you over to another Dan to Dan Bevan at LBC. Thank you First Minister good afternoon. You said on Friday that a circuit breaker will give us enough headroom until Christmas but if that doesn't happen will you be willing to do this again and will you rule out another circuit breaker in the new year? Well I'm afraid the answer to both of those is no Dan. I'm not in the business of giving guarantees that nobody could possibly be sure they could keep nor can I rule out further measures into next year if the virus were to come back and be spreading at the velocity that it is spreading today. The aim of the firebreak period is to get us through to Christmas without the need for restrictions of this sort. There will be a regime the other side of it as I've said but the aim of the firebreak is to reset the clock and to allow us to get through to Christmas together. Beyond that it simply wouldn't be sensible given the speed at which things change the nature of the virus we've faced to be offering people guarantees of how the future may unfold. Thank you and can I ask what this new circuit breaker means for shielders. Will there be any specific advice for people who are asked to stay at home extra after the lockdown was eased and is it possible they could be asked to stay at home past the 17 day period you've already announced? Dan, thank you. That's a very important question. We discussed this directly with the chief medical officer this morning. He intends to write out to all the people who are on the shielded list that letter is planned to go this week so it will arrive before the firebreak period begins. It will provide the best and most up-to-date advice to people in that shielded group but it will explain to them what the chief medical officer believes they should best do during that two-week period and beyond and I'm very keen indeed the people who will be anxious and who will wonder what this means for them that they get that advice directly from the chief medical officer of Wales the most authoritative advice they can get and I know that Dr Atherton is very keen to make sure that that is provided to them before the Friday start of the firebreak begins. Dan, thank you. Over to Gareth, Gwyn Williams of the Daily Post. Proud dda. Gwynedd yr Anglesey are currently the only North Wales counties not subject to a local lockdown but with cases rising and pushing the counties near or often beyond the 50 per 100,000 seven-day figure has the Welsh Government been asked to implement wider measures in either Gwynedd or Anglesey and with that in mind would the Welsh Government be minded to do so now that the even stricter firebreaker is coming in? Gareth I said earlier in this afternoon that one of the reasons why we're moving to a national set of measures is because the gap between those places where the virus has been effectively suppressed and other places has been narrowing and that is certainly true of Gwynedd and of Anas Môn and there have indeed been discussions with those localities and others in Wales as to whether or not we should take measures in advance of the firebreak period on Friday of this week. I thought it was important that we drew these discussions to a close so that we were clear about what the plan was for Friday. We will now see whether there are gains to be had from further local restrictions in the next few days in advance of Friday but I would need to be convinced that those gains were real. What we really need to do is without the rules changing for people's behaviour to change. People in Anas Môn, Gwynedd, Pembrokeshire, wherever, they don't need the rules to change in order for them to do all the things that make a difference so in those parts of Wales as everywhere else the fewer people you meet, the fewer journeys you make, the more you keep social distancing and do all the other things, the safer we will all be and people can do that now. They don't need to wait for Friday and they don't need for local rules to change but we will be discussing all that further of course with those local authorities and with the public health leaders in those parts of Wales. You referred to this earlier but cross-border travel restrictions are ready in place for those living in areas with high levels of COVID-19. Can you confirm if the firebreak will mean restrictions and all non-essential cross-border travel in that case? Yes, during the two weeks of the firebreak period cross-border travel will be even stricter than it has been in recent days. Essential travel will be still possible but non-essential travel within Wales and across the border into Wales will have to end for the period of the firebreak. Diolch, Gareth. Rob Taylor of rexham.com Good afternoon. In the consultations and advice you've taken over the last few days has any health official suggested that a longer firebreak lockdown would be more beneficial for example closer to a month and if so what was their advice and what's your reason for taking a shorter time period and if they are the health experts why disregard them? There are an awful lot of ifs in that question. Rob, I must say. So, let me disentangle the question. Was there a debate about how long the period should be? Yes. What was the nature of the debate? You either have a longer period of restrictions that are slightly less strict or you have a shorter period of restrictions where they have to be as strict as possible. The advice to us from the technical advisory group, I think we're publishing their advice now during this press conference, was that we should go for short and sharp. So, we are not ignoring anybody's advice but was there a debate about how long this should last and what would the mixture of restrictions be? Well, yes, of course but in the end the advice was is that the balance of the calculation came down in favour of the length of period that we are going for provided we could make it as deep and as strict as necessary. Thank you and 10 days ago you referred to local lockdown heat maps as really useful despite requests it appears only certain areas of Wales has them even than they're not regularly updated. At the start of this month and ongoing we've tried to get more detail over anonymised information regarding the situation in the local hospital regarding admissions, people admitted, treated if they required ITUs, discharged that kind of thing. You've said many times you're keen for data to be given out where possible. Where is the blockage on this and can you give a clear message that you expect such anonymised data to be released in a prompt manner? I'm very happy to give that final assurance. My view is that the more data that is available provided that it is there is explanation as well as information that the information tells the right story and isn't capable of being easily misunderstood. The more data people have available to them the better understanding they have. Different local authorities are in different positions as far as heat maps are concerned not all of them have the same capacity whether that is staff capacity or whether it is the software and so on that you need in order to produce such heat maps. Where they can be produced I know people find them useful and in general I repeat what I've said I think probably over the whole six months with you Rob that the more information people can have provided as I say it's properly explained and understood the better I think it is for people in understanding the difficult position we find ourselves in. Over to Josh Searle at the South Wales Argas. Afternoon will the end of the circuit break lockdown also see an end to local lockdown restrictions in place of new national restrictions or will those new guidelines be introduced alongside the local measures? Well Josh I think that is what we are working on when I said that there would be a regime beyond the circuit breaker, fire breaker period. There's more than one set of possibilities I think I've explained them probably on Friday to someone who asked me a similar question but those discussions are still continuing. I will come back to them and I will make sure I report them to people as soon as they're concluded but we're not at that point today. Today we have been focusing and all over the weekend we have been focusing on getting the period of the fire breaker itself as clear as we can as well resourced for businesses as we can and now we will move on to focus on those next steps. And how will this impact professional sports teams in the country for example football league teams and pro-14 teams? Will they be allowed to to fulfil their fixtures in this next two weeks? Professional sport will be able to continue because it is work and while we want people to work from home wherever possible it's not possible to play a football match alone at home. So if it's professional sport yes it will be allowed to continue. Josh thank you very much over to Matt Jones of the County Times. No? No we'll come back to Matt if he's able to join us but if he's not then to Nathan. Sorry I'm here I'm here. Excellent. Thank you thank you First Minister and also thank you to my colleagues who asked a few questions ahead of me and I already planned. First Minister do you think that tourism has had an impact on transmission and how damage do you think relates between communities and tourists? Well I think the evidence from the summer when the incidence of coronavirus generally was very low that visitors from within Wales and to Wales acted responsibly and we didn't see the virus in greater circulation because of tourism at that point. We're in a very different context now where the evidence does show that people travelling within Wales and into Wales risk taking the virus with them to the places that they are visiting and that's because there is just an awful lot more coronavirus in circulation so that risk is much higher. So I don't think there is just one conclusion the conclusion depends upon the context within which those visitors are travelling. As to the relationship between our tourism industry and the people who take advantage of it I've said many times from this podium that our colleagues in tourism businesses have worked exceptionally hard to make sure that they take local communities with them and to provide a really good experience for visitors. That was the experience during the summer we had tens of thousands and thousands of people coming to Wales and doing so successfully. It is really important that we go on explaining that the reason we are asking people not to travel within Wales or into Wales at the moment is not because we want to keep people away and not because we don't look forward to visiting and being welcomed again but because in the pandemic in the public health emergency we are facing now is not the moment to do so. And secondly you touched on this before obviously but you said that the benefits will be slightly better than previous because you can now visit with someone outside your local authority just for clarification that you mean within Wales that doesn't include obviously someone coming in from England. Well we are offering single adult households the opportunity to form a bubble with one other household. I'll be asking them as I would with anybody else to think carefully about who that household would be and to minimise the travel that's involved in it because the further you travel the greater the risk. So people will not now be confined to their own local authority area and most of the letters that I've had and I have I must say I have had letters from people heartfelt letters from people saying I'm a single person living on my own. My family lives five miles across the border in the neighbouring local authority. Why can't I form an alliance with them? Well now you will be able to but the closer to where you live that alliance is formed the better that will be as far as the virus is concerned. Matt, good. Thanks. Glad to have caught up with you over to Nathan Shusmith at the speaker. Thank you. Good afternoon First Minister. Some of our readers in higher education will be wondering why blended learning will be continuing at universities in Wales especially while many secondary school students will have to work from home. Many in higher education have been calling for an online only approach for some time given the risk of virus transmission indoors and outbreaks at universities. Is there a reason why this is not being imposed for lockdown period? Yes there is Nathan. It's just a balance of harms issue. Our fear was was that if we said today that for the fortnight beginning on the 23rd of October students would be taught entirely online they would be a significant number of people who would decide to leave Wales and to return home or to travel within Wales to home. Taking the virus with them and bringing it back in larger numbers when they returned a fortnight later. How do you obviate that risk? Well it's by allowing universities to continue with a blend of in-person and online teaching. I think that will help to maintain people living where they are living now without the risks of widespread travel but I think the risk would be there if we were to move simply to online learning. Thank you for explaining the reasoning behind that. The five rate lockdown periods will no doubt have an impact on the mental health of people in Wales. Will the Welsh Government remind people over the next week the support available to them and you've announced economic support. Will there be any support to go to mental health services and services that will inevitably have to support people over this period? Nathan thank you again a really important question. We've strengthened our mental health services for young people both in schools and outside schools. We announced a sum of money in the last week or so for third sector mental health organisations additional funding for them to be able to offer help to people in the community and let me say to people who may be watching who may be anxious about the mental health impact in their own lives or in the lives of other people that we have our own mental health helpline open 24 hours every single day where you can talk to another human being who is trained in responding to the sorts of dilemmas and difficulties that people may face or call mental health helpline. People will find its number on the Welsh Government website 0800 132737 and that's available to anyone at any time for exactly the reasons Nathan that you've set out. Thank you. Thank you. Over to Tom, Tom Magner at Carersworld. Thank you First Minister. Can I just narrow down a little bit on the mental health question that's just been asked? Unless I missed it and the apologies if I did you didn't mention unpaid carers in your starting list of critical people on the coronavirus front line. Further you're supporting business but it seems denying Welsh unpaid carers a special coronavirus payment like that granted in Scotland. When I previously asked I believe that you consider it unfair and unjust to make such a payment without all carers identified. You've frequently thanked them for their critical contribution but isn't it time now to give unpaid carers the specific financial support they so desperately need especially during lockdown? Well Tom thank you for the question. The first part of the question informal carers will be able to continue to offer care during the firebreak period where it's essential for them to do so and thank you for allowing me to give a small advert to announcements that will be made here in Wales tomorrow so I can't anticipate them but I hope the carers informal carers and of course you know there are thousands and thousands of people who will be interested. Tomorrow there are a number of important announcements we will be making and I hope people will be listening in to make sure they know what they are. Will we look forward to those announcements tomorrow and can I change tactics like you and look at a health issue that's worrying a growing number of viewers and that's the issue of poor air quality from neighbours burning wood in stoves and gardens particularly during this new stay at home lockdown. Has the time come now to recognise the health issues involved and ban domestic wood burning for the good of all during a lockdown and if not why not? Well I'm certainly aware of the issue, the impact that wood burning stoves can have on people who suffer from asthma and other breathing difficulties. Our clean air plan which we published at the Aesteddfod in fact back in August does make proposals in relation to wood burning stoves and other things of course that impact on air quality. We're not likely to be in a position to introduce immediate changes but capacity of the Welsh Government but also the capacity of the Senedd to deal with a volume of legislation that it's being asked to carry out both for coronavirus purposes. In the rest of this year a very large number of Brexit related pieces of secondary legislation that we will need to take through the Senedd means that they simply isn't the scope to make those changes immediately but the clean air plan will lead to a clean air bill that we will hope to if we're in a position to do it of course take forward in the next Senedd term. Thank you. Thank you very much Tom. Over to Alan Evans, that's an elly online. Good afternoon First Minister. The World Health Organization states that the government must make the most of the extra time granted by lockdown measures by doing all they can. You've just asked the people of Wales to do all they can to make sacrifices. Are you confident that the Welsh Government is meeting all the World Health Organization's requirements and given the latest situation do you believe that Wales is on the verge of seeing a rise in non-Covid conditions such as the mental health issues, suicide rates, domestic violence, child abuse and child poverty and will more resources be going in and being allocated to address those issues as we go forward? Well thank you very much. Look we have already seen rises in a number of those areas. Some of them directly associated with the pandemic period. It has had, we know an impact on people's sense of mental health and well-being. We know that during the early weeks particularly of the lockdown then domestic violence was a real issue. I think in so far as it is good news then a lot of those services have recovered are back working closer to what they would have been like back in February. Routine treatment in the health service has recovered back to around 60% of where it was in February. Cancer referrals are back to 90% of where they were. Emergency services are back to where they were back in February. So the system has recovered and there is more to go. The Welsh Government funds all of that but I couldn't say to anybody that this is an easy business. The amount of money we are needing to find for our test and trace system to support businesses, to open field hospitals, all of those directly health related and business related coronavirus costs are very real and they do have an impact on our ability to fund other things which have in their own way very significant calls on resources. Does any of the evidence suggest that COVID-19 is predominantly prevalent in a certain age group 50 or 60 plus for example and if so should the strategy home in on an age related approach as we go forward again maybe? I'm not attracted to an age related approach. I don't think saying to older people you're the problem we need to lock you up so everybody else can carry on with their lives. I don't think it is ethically attractive and I don't think that it's effective either so it manages to be both offensive and ineffective in one go. It's particularly ineffective in a Welsh context where we know we have large numbers of people in their 50s who have underlying health conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to coronavirus. We know we have groups in society if you're overweight for example at any age coronavirus has a particular impact on you so age related restrictions are I think not the answer despite the fact that they are advocated by some. Alan thank you very much. Andrew Nuttall at the leader. Thank you minister. In areas north Wales such as Fincher and Wrexham we've got a various city towns and villages that are on the border with England so how will a circuit breaker like what you've proposed today work in areas on the coast of England who have so far not put any of the sort of circuit breaker or fire breaker actions into plan and just on top of that in these discussions that you've had with ministers was it possible that the five mile rule could have been reintroduced as we go a bit closer to what we saw in March with the lockdown? Andrew we did discuss a stay local approach rather than a stay at home approach. If we'd gone for a stay local approach you know the sort of five mile guidance that we have then the advice from the chief medical officer and others was is that the restrictions would have to last for longer. There's a real trade-off here between length and depth but you know the shorter the period the deeper the restrictions have to be if you allow people to do more and obviously allowing people to travel even five miles is more than staying at home then the restrictions would have to be in place for longer and as I said earlier in the end the advice to us was we should go for short and sharp and that's what this will be you're right to point to the border issue it's a matter of concern always to us actually we are seeing more and more along our border strict measures having to be taken and our best defence in Wales is to act right across Wales from the furthest tip of the lean peninsula in the west right to the border in northeast Wales. Everybody plays their part we all get the maximum benefit. Thank you and throughout this conference today you've mentioned support for businesses but what support is specifically available for freelance workers and self-employed so throughout the pandemic they've raised concerns a number of times about being somewhat forgotten in the Welsh government support that's been available until fairly recently and these people will still have bills to pay and families to feed but they now will face a further two weeks of not working about those 17 days including the weekends either side so what can you say to those people that will now obviously face further disruption to their income? So you will know Andrew you saw referred to it that we've had a £7 million fund specifically for freelance workers we're the only part of the United Kingdom to have a fund that aims directly at people who are in that position. Phase one of the fund was very quickly oversubscribed in some parts of Wales but not all parts of Wales so we've collected back the money from those parts of Wales where the demand wasn't at the most significant and we have I think relaunched phase two of the scheme already so the fund is open again and we hope to be able to find the £2,500 that is available for freelance workers through that fund out to even more people than we were able to in phase one and that will run during this period as it would have done even if the firebreak period were not in place. Finally today to Luke Davis at Cardiff Local TV. Hello Siwmai, good afternoon First Minister. Well with the aim of reassuring the Welsh people possibly I understand Wales is its own specific case. I just wanted to know if you could share some light at this time and any examples where short and sharp restrictions like this have worked elsewhere please. Well look dear Favard of course we have looked at international evidence we wouldn't be the first part of the world to try this but all around Europe particularly different governments are trying different approaches you will have seen I know the restrictions introduced in France at the end of that last week restrictions introduced in Italy again today. I suppose what we are doing is closest in the most local sense to the arrangements announced last at the start of last week in Northern Ireland where a form of firebreak is now in position. So through our public health Wales we are very fortunate to have a very good set of international contacts which allow us to learn from what is going on elsewhere whether it is a firebreak of the sort that we are proposing or the other measures that countries elsewhere faced with a similar flare up are having to put in place. And finally First Minister is there any concern that people in Wales may have fears that they may have done their time as it will with the country already seeing strict restrictions for a period of months do you think people will be as willing to follow the rules this time round? Well I think people do feel that they've done their time I think we all feel that don't they you know every one of us would like our lives to be closer to what they were before all of this happened. I'm encouraged by the fact that where we have had local lockdown restrictions in place the evidence is that the vast majority of people approach them asking what they can do to help rather than asking what can I do to get round these rules and so despite the feeling of fatigue despite the feeling that we all shared that we wish it were over I still think there is a reservoir there that we can draw on of people in Wales understanding still that the way that we deal with problems that face us all is to act together to act collectively to make our contributions one by one because those contributions add up to something far bigger than any one of us could do by ourselves and in that way we can still make a difference that's what we will be appealing to and I still think despite that feeling of fatigue and so on it's still there to be drawn upon here in Wales. Thank you all very much indeed you have out y an i chi gyd.