THE first minister of Wales has issued an urgent appeal for people to stay at home and prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Mark Drakeford asked members of the Welsh public to keep following basic public health guidelines on hand-washing and social distancing.

His appeal this afternoon (Friday) comes hours after Wales recorded 56 new coronavirus-related deaths and 2,487 new confirmed cases of Covid-19.

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Here is the first minister's message in full:

Once again, I’m asking for your help to keep Wales safe.

The coronavirus pandemic has taken another significant turn.

Cases are very high in Wales and a new strain of the virus is spreading very quickly across the country. Our NHS is under real pressure.

We must all once again stay at home. I know this is will be a very difficult time for everyone.

But it’s more important than ever that we all follow the rules. We can’t stop now

It’s so important that we limit contact with other people to prevent this awful virus from spreading and protect ourselves and our families.

We all need to work from home if we can.

If we have to leave home, we must keep our distance from others, wash our hands regularly and wear a face mask in indoor public places.

The vaccine is here and is being rolled out. It offers us the path out of this pandemic and there is real hope for the future.

There is a lot of hard work going on to set up more clinics and arrange appointments for people to come and have the vaccine at one of the mass vaccine centres or at GP clinic near you.

It will take time to vaccinate everyone. We must all play our part to keep ourselves, our families and our communities safe.

The situation is serious and the whole of Wales is at alert level four. This means you must stay home.

By pulling together we can keep Wales safe.

Thank you for everything you are doing.

Wales is currently in level-four restrictions. More information about the alert level-four lockdown can be found online at gov.wales/alert-level-4