IT IS unlikely any major changes will be made to Wales’ coronavirus restrictions this week, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.

Ministers are to review restrictions on Wednesday ahead of an announcement on Friday, but Mr Drakeford said it was “very hard to see room for manoeuvre” given the pressures on Wales’ hospitals.

It means we could see Wales under current restrictions until the next three-week review at the end of January.

Speaking to BBC Radio Wales on Sunday, he said the restrictions this month are likely to follow a similar pattern.

“We’ll keep our plans under review but level four restrictions are very strict and it’s difficult to see what more could be done,” he said when asked if he would be open to changing the restrictions.

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Will Wales be changing course on school return?

He defended the decision to allow schools across Wales to have a phased return to teaching from as early as Wednesday despite criticism from unions after news of rising cases and a new, more transmittable, variant of the virus.

On Sunday director of school leaders’ union NAHT Cymru Laura Doel said: “We believe that it is wrong to keep people in harm’s way while the implications of the new variant of the virus are still being discovered.”

In response, the First Minister said: “Over the first two weeks there will be flexibility for local authorities and headteachers to assess the situation in their individual contexts – to see how many teachers have been affected by the virus, for example, and then to phase a return in a way that is safe but which also continues to place a priority on the needs of our young people whose lives have been badly disrupted.

“Our technical advisory group will be looking at all the evidence again early next week and of course will continue to make decisions in the light of the best knowledge, research and information available to us at the time.

“But as a government we will not lose sight of the fact that we have a generation of young people here in Wales whose lives have been so badly disrupted in 2020, whose education needs to be put back on track and it is their needs that we will continue to have at the forefront of our minds as we organise with our colleagues a safe return to school.”

Mr Drakeford confirmed that the process of mass testing in Welsh schools will begin as planned in January.