ALLOWING people to meet up for activities such as golf, tennis and fishing may risk "allowing the coronavirus genie out of the bottle again", said first minister Mark Drakeford.

On Friday, the first minister announced minor changes to Wales' lockdown measures, allowing people to change their support bubble and allowing two people to meet up for exercise.

The new rules mean two adults from separate households can meet up for exercise, as long as it is local and starts and finishes at their own doorstep. Children under 11 are exempt from the restrictions.

READ MORE:

At the press conference, the first minister was asked, if exercising outside with one other person was now considered safe, why activities such as tennis, golf or fishing were still prohibited.

"It's always possible for a group of people to make themselves a special case, and they’ve often got sensible arguments that they can put in favour of what they want to do," he said.

"As I've explained many times over the past year, the problem is that those things all add up cumulatively - every bit that you do creates new opportunities for people to get together and when people get together coronavirus thrives.

"So, tough as it is and frustrating as it is for many people, we’re still at a point in this latest wave of the pandemic where doing the minimum to get together is the right thing to do.

"The two very small easements I’ve announced this afternoon are the furthest we can do and, if we continue to be on the right track, then in three weeks’ time, maybe we will be able to make some response to those people who make special cases for other forms of activity.

"Now is not the moment to do it. The risk would be that everything we've achieved over the last six weeks could be undermined by things which by themselves look sensible, but when you add them up all up together have the effect of allowing the coronavirus genie out of the bottle again."