THE 'majority of headroom' in Wales will be used to ensure that schools will reopen for children aged seven and under from February 22, Health Minister Vaughan Gething has said.

The Welsh Government is set to review the current lockdown restrictions this week.

At the Welsh Government press conference on February 15, Vaughan Gething said that ministers will look at the evidence and a decision will be made then, but he would not 'speculate' beforehand.

He said: “We’re looking to see if there are other small things we can do and the reason we’re saying small things is we’re trying to manage people’s expectations.

“We’re not suddenly going to have a wide-scale opening of all the measures and lots of mixing between different households.”

Mr Gething said ministers would receive more information from the country’s chief medical officer, scientific advisers as well as data about transmission rates and NHS capacity, before making their decision.

He added: “I’m not going to get drawn into speculating on a suite of individual potential measures because we’re trying to be as upfront with people as we can without getting drawn into unhelpful speculation.”

When asked about the potential for 'al-fresco' dining in the Spring, Mr Gething said the reasonable expectation is that as they move through each review period, they will be open about headroom they have.

He said schools starting to return is a 'priority', and if all is well, then they will have other choices.

He added that the 'worst thing he could do' is give a guarantee that does not take into account the reality.

Each review will set out what they expect, and what they think they can do in following periods but the want to be 'cautious and sensible'

Mr Gething refused to rule out any future lockdowns.

He said the 'danger' in talking about this lockdown, the third national lockdown, being the last one is that it does not take into account changes in the virus.

Any future changes such as new variants, mean different choices need to be made.

They want to see cases down as 'low as possible' and a 'cautious exit'.

He said people will be be 'returning to normal life' like we saw over a year ago.

Mr Gething did say they did not want to introduce more restrictions, but cannot guarantee it would never happen.

When asked about the potential of lockdown fatigue and potential rise in breaches, Mr Gething said he 'never wanted to intrude in people’s lives' like this but it has been necessary to save lives.

The health minister said that despite the tough measures, Wales has suffered thousands of deaths and the virus is 'very real'.

He went on to say that the virus is also doing harm on mental health and the economy and they will always 'balance that'.

However, when surveyed, he said the majority of people said they would rather see rules in place for longer and ease gradually to ensure there is not another spike in virus.