Lockdown could be reintroduced in Wales after current restrictions are lifted, health minister Vaughan Gething admitted.

Mr Gething told a press conference in Cardiff that ministers would have a responsibility to act if there was a ‘significant upswing’ in coronavirus cases, ahead of some pupils returning to classes next week.

Restrictions in the country are formally reviewed every three weeks, with the cabinet due to decide on Thursday and First Minister Mark Drakeford expected to announce any changes this Friday.

Mr Gething said ministers were considering how they could give families ‘a bit more flexibility after such a long lockdown’. But he told reporters that the ‘majority of headroom’ created by the improved situation in Wales would be used to return children aged seven and under to face-to-face teaching from February 22.

His warning that yet another lockdown cannot be ruled out came before similar comments from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who on Monday night declined to rule out a fourth national lockdown in England. 

Speaking before the PM, Mr Gething said: ‘What we want to do is make choices based on the best available data and information, to see case rates driven as low as possible, and then to have a cautious exit out of the current lockdown that we’re in.

‘But if we make cautious steps outwards then it will still very much feel like a form of lockdown for most people because we’re not going to be returning straightway to what we thought of as our normal lives just over a year ago.

‘We don’t want to see a return to having to introduce more restrictions but I wouldn’t say that we could give a cast iron guarantee that would never happen.’

He added: ‘If, for example, we’d found our way to have a number of restrictions removed but we then saw a significant upswing in the virus – whether its a new variant or otherwise – then we would have a responsibility to act.

‘That’s why we all need to continue reminding ourselves that we’ve got (to) this place, with schools about to return next week for some of our youngest children attending, with lower death rates, with lower case rates all across the country.’

The Kent variant is now the dominant strain in Wales, amid warnings that it could ‘sweep the world’. 

Cases of a mutated version of that strain have been identified close to the border, in Bristol and Liverpool.

In total, 13 cases of the South African variant have also been detected in Wales – with all but two of these having links to international travel.

‘The best way of reducing the likelihood of new variants emerging is to keep new infections low’, Mr Gething argued.

Level 4 restrictions – a national lockdown – were introduced in Wales on December 20, with people told to stay at home apart from essential reasons.

Ministers will use information from the country’s chief medical officer, scientific advisers, as well as data about transmission rates and NHS capacity, before making a decision on whether any restrictions can be eased.

First Minister Mark Drakeford previously said ‘cautious’ talks are ongoing with the tourism and hospitality industries in Wales about reopening in time for Easter.

Almost 785,000 people in Wales have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, the equivalent of one in four people in the country.

The Welsh Government hit its target of offering vaccinations to everyone in the top four priority groups by mid-February early and is now planning to offer the jab to all those in groups five to nine by the end of April.

A ‘temporary slowdown’ of vaccine supply across the UK, expected over the next two weeks, has been factored into these plans and will not delay any second-dose appointments, Mr Gething confirmed.

On Monday, Public Health Wales reported a further 363 cases of coronavirus in Wales, taking the number of confirmed cases to 199,518.

Another 16 deaths were recorded, bringing the total in the country since the start of the pandemic to 5,137.

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