THE chief executive for NHS Wales has said the North Wales factory outbreaks of COVID-19 demonstrate the country’s speedy response to limiting community transmission.

Dr Andrew Goodall gave the latest Welsh Government press conference on July 8 and provided updates on the coronavirus’ impact on local NHS services.

Responding to a question about home testing, and concerns that results may be inaccurate if not administered by a professional, Dr Goodall said: “Our predominant way of producing test results in Wales are on the back of contactors – albeit socially distanced – and the expertise associated with that. We have such a focus on our drive-through centres, and our mobile testing units, and of course the experience we have within the hospital environment.

“I think in terms of the flexibility and what that means, hopefully our recent experience through the outbreaks that occurred both in north Wales and Merthyr relating to factories and food processing actually showed that we are able very speedily to respond to those areas to demonstrate there was not wider spread community transmission.”

He adds that there the NHS system is trying to balance different ways of testing widely in Wales and says the most important thing at this stage is “if there were a concern, cluster or outbreak - that the response could be as speedy as possible”.

Latest figures show outbreaks in Wrexham and on Anglesey were discussed in the latest Public Health Wales coronavirus statement on July 8 and show a small increase in Wales – but have not prompted major concerns from health officials.

Dr Robin Howe, incident director for the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak response at Public Health Wales, said: “The outbreak of Coronavirus associated with Rowan Foods Ltd in Wrexham has recorded a modest increase of 13 confirmed cases of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection since Friday last week. This brings the total number of positive cases in the outbreak to 302.”

He adds that this is “in line with what we would expect to see from a focused testing process”.

With regards to the other outbreak on Anglesey, Dr Howe said: “The multi-agency team managing the outbreak of Coronavirus associated with the 2 Sisters meat processing plant has reported consistently good news for a number of days and operations are resuming at the site.”