Member of the Welsh parliament says the country has to learn to live with Covid
The member of the Welsh Parliament for Montgomeryshire, Russell George has called for the immediate removal of vaccine passports, all remaining business restrictions, and mandatory face masks in schools as the county learned to live with coronavirus.
Russell George, Member of the Senedd, said that the UK had one of the most successful vaccine procurement and rollout programmes in the world.
"Vaccines work and the booster jab showed its resilience against the Omicron variant, which the Welsh Government responded to with unnecessary restrictions," he said.
He is called for Welsh ministers to move to establish a programme of annual or biannual jabs for the most vulnerable demographics, already in place for the flu.
"This is all the more sensible given the approach of Covid-19’s endemic stage," he said.
"What can’t happen is that Wales stays in Alert Level 0. Although this may sound like no restrictions – or protections as the Welsh Government have started calling them – there are still ways we are not as free as we were two years ago.
"These limits exist across four lines: mask mandates, business restrictions, vaccine passports, and self-isolation."
Mr George said that he was not anti-mask but said they should now be a matter of self-responsibility.
"Private businesses would be welcome to have a requirement – it would be their choice."
However Mr George said evidence showed facemasks do little to protect young people from transmission in the classroom but did affect the quality of learning.
"Teachers and pupils should be free to wear a mask if they so wish but the government should not demand our younger generation adopt a known barrier to education to stop spreading a disease against which most people are fully vaccinated."
"Businesses need to be free of the constant threat of restrictions and lockdowns whenever a hypothetical variant is spoken about. This is no way to run an economy and Wales can never move on as it stands without change. Just ask the Welsh hospitality business that traded a third down compared to England in the four weeks since Boxing Day. I also feel that vaccine passports are a coercive, ineffective, and pointless measure that still has no proof that it works."
"We have not gone through the last two years, losing loved ones – to both the virus and lockdowns – waited to be vaccinated three times, and limited our lives and livelihoods only for government ministers to say “not yet” when we ask for the return of our freedoms now that there’s no real need for them to be withheld longer. If we can’t live with the virus now or soon, we never will."
