Decision Whether to Impose Vaccine Passports on Pubs Will Be Made at the “Last Minute”, Says Mark Drakeford

Mark Drakeford has said that a decision on whether to extend the Welsh Government’s vaccine passport scheme to pubs won’t be taken until the last possible moment, with the Welsh First Minister adding that “circumstances and knowledge are developing so fast”. Drakeford also mentioned that imposing vaccine passports on pubs would not have been taken into consideration if the Omicron variant had never emerged. BBC News has the story.

A decision on whether to extend Covid passes to pubs and restaurants will be made at the “last minute”, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.

Ministers are to consider whether to expand the scheme over the next week, with the next Covid rules review due on Friday.

Drakeford said the emergence of the Omicron variant has led to knowledge and circumstances developing “so fast”.

The first case of Omicron was confirmed in Wales on Friday.

Covid passes are already required for cinemas, theatres, nightclubs and large events in Wales.

They show if someone has been fully vaccinated or tested negative for Covid in the past 48 hours.

The Welsh Conservatives have said they remained opposed to Covid passes because they do not seem to present “additional benefits” to stopping Covid.

But the First Minister told Politics Wales he did not think the Welsh Government would be considering extending passes to hospitality if it had only been dealing with the dominant Delta variant.

He said: “We’ve got another week to go. We will learn a lot in that week about the Omicron virus.

“If we were to do it, it would simply be to help those businesses to stay open and still attracting customers through the door because people would feel confident that everybody else in that setting were either vaccinated or had taken a lateral flow test.

“But we haven’t made that decision, and we won’t make that decision right up until the day we have to, because circumstances and knowledge are developing so fast around the new variant that you ought to wait to have the maximum amount of information that you can.”

Sam Rowlands, Conservative Member of the Senedd (MS) for North Wales, said the Government should ensure “every part of our energies” is put in to rolling out booster jabs rather than extending use of the pass.

“With that you could see much better walk-in centres – rapid roll-out of walk-in centres across the country,” he said.

Plaid Cymru deputy leader Sian Gwenllian MS said: “We need to rely on the evidence and listen to what the experts say before bringing in any new regulations but if they are needed, they are needed.”

Drakeford said he could not claim the Covid pass scheme was making a difference “above the fact that it makes that extra marginal difference alongside everything else you do”.

Worth reading in full.

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nickbowes
nickbowes
4 years ago

This ugly tyrant called his own people thick recently. What are you waiting for proud Welsh men and women… time to start reading up on the history of Nicolai and Elena !

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago
Reply to  mishmash

Who is the other person in the video clip with Drakeford?

If it is a Civil Servant then they are clearly in breach of the civil service code which requires them to act with integrity and honesty at all times

Formal complaint methinks

mishmash
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

His name is Simon Jenkins and I believe he is the Head of News for the Welsh government.

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago
Reply to  mishmash

I’ve added him to the list

BoJo The Great
BoJo The Great
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

Hi Cecil, can you let us know your list to date and also confirm whether it’s for prosecution or for something more proportionate? I am also making a “list” and I’m checking it twice 🙂

CGL
CGL
4 years ago
Reply to  BoJo The Great

No nice ones on it though is there?

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago
Reply to  BoJo The Great

Prosecutions

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago
Reply to  mishmash

Can’t find him on twitter, facebook, wiki, or any gov website. Appears to be completely anon

Any info out there?

mishmash
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

His LinkedIn if you have an account to see it (I don’t).
He used to be a spokesman for steel maker Corus, here’s an old BBC piece from 2002 with his picture (wearing the hard hat).

mishmash
4 years ago
Reply to  mishmash

His LinkedIn profile (no picture):

Simon Jenkins.
Welsh Government Head of News & First Minister’s Official Spokesperson.
– First class degree in Economics and a MSc in Public Relations
– British Steel (Tata) 1990 – 2004 – IT Manager for European Operations and Head of Political & Public Affairs / Media spokesperson for the Group in Wales.

pre-Boomer Marine brat
pre-Boomer Marine brat
4 years ago
Reply to  nickbowes

Phrenology has long since been labeled “pseudo-science”, but just looking at the gentleman’s photo tempts me to wonder if, in fact, he packs the gear to father children.

Jo Starlin
4 years ago

Well, he produced one child I know of. A child rapist.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45600558

Jo
Jo
4 years ago
Reply to  Jo Starlin

Actually he was adopted…. still, nature vs nurture?

Annie
4 years ago
Reply to  Jo

Son raped a woman.
Father rapes a country.
Must be mental heredity.

pre-Boomer Marine brat
pre-Boomer Marine brat
4 years ago
Reply to  Annie

In America, the problem is in what the popular culture has become over the past 70 years. It’s cultural. Cultural. What we do daily, out on the street. What the present majority expects. What it will put up with. What if feels is unchangeable. What it wants tomorrow to be. What it thinks of the past. What it openly giggles about. What it secretly gets aroused by. … Culture.

Civilizations die because the culture becomes corrupt. One day, a civilization will mature and survive, and it will do so because of what the common folk believe and do.

pre-Boomer Marine brat
pre-Boomer Marine brat
4 years ago
Reply to  Jo Starlin

Just read the BBC article. Didn’t know about that.

Might an American be permitted to say that Great Britain betrayed the rest of humanity by losing the fine art of drawing and quartering?

Jo Starlin
4 years ago

You most certainly may.

DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
4 years ago
Reply to  Jo Starlin

Son of senior politician only gets 8 years. Mitigating circumstances, having an arsehole for a father?

Jo Starlin
4 years ago

This creature is really quite something. Also note the standard “opposition” parties’ response of “we object to this insanity because it isn’t insane enough.”

SimCS
4 years ago
Reply to  Jo Starlin

And this is our dilemma, we literally have nobody rational to vote for. My own (England) MP is a useful as a paper towel stopping the Nile river.

Smelly Melly
4 years ago

Who’s going to police this? I go to restaurants and have never used the Trap and Trick app (I haven’t downloaded it and I’ve blocked the numbers they use). I haven’t seen anybody use this stupid and useless waste of money so I ask again who’s going to police it 2 weeks after making it mandatory?

rayc
rayc
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

The owners of the pubs are going to police this. Just threaten them with fine of 25000 euro/pounds (like “we” do in Germany), and they have little choice but to police it (because your unpoliced guest can always turn out to be a snitch or disguised cop).

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago
Reply to  rayc

We will pretend to have covid passes and they will pretend to examine them

helenf
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

If the majority of business owners had as much courage as that Swansea woman with her independent cinema, to basically say “fuck off with your covid passes, I’m not going to introduce medical apartheid here”, then Dripford’s mandate would be dead in the water. No one could enforce it.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  rayc

You need to resist. Germans are next for the meat wagon.

Javy
Javy
4 years ago

We used to visit Wales on a regular basis but this Idiot has totally spoilt the Country for us. The pubs, in particular, are a shadow of what they used to be. Sadly there are still some who think Drakeford is doing a good job…..

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  Javy

We have been holidaying in Wales every year since the the late eighties. Sadly we decided to give Wales a miss this year. Of course we won’t be going again, while the place remains little more than an open air prison camp.

Annie
4 years ago
Reply to  Rowan

I live there.
I manage.
Thank you very, very much for your support.

helenf
4 years ago
Reply to  Annie

I live there too, and I have to say that the pubs are much more laid back about all the covid nonsense now. It’s nothing like it was back in the summer, when visiting a Welsh pub was a highly unpleasant experience and I ended up avoiding completely. Now it’s almost back to normal, at least in the pubs I’ve visited. Good sense has prevailed.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  Annie

You manage and that’s fine, but we don’t want to visit somewhere that has more pointless restrictions than there are at home.

John Dee
4 years ago
Reply to  Javy

There’s a similar malaise affecting Scotland, where – despite all the results showing the opposite – many of the camp’s inmates think Krankie’s also managing things adequately.
I suppose it could be Stockholm Syndrome on a national scale?

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  John Dee

The king of Sweden got that didn’t he?

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  Javy

It’s not just Drakeford though, is it? Name his evil henchmen.

RichardTechnik
RichardTechnik
4 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

evil henchwomen maybe – the fascist Eluned Morgan. Don’t forget the EU childrens commisisoner Sophie Howe from whom most in govt take their orders

Anti_socialist
4 years ago

Nothing to do with health.

because people would feel confident that everybody else in that setting were either vaccinated or had taken a lateral flow test.

Repeating the same bile of other communist leaders around the world, it’s an excuse to divide comrades.

I’m going to change my name to I fucking hate socialists. Just kidding 😉 but I do.

Anti_socialist
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

Mind I have issues with some “supposed” conservatives too,

Anti-vaxxers have made me lose faith in the political right

A vaccine will not just protect yourself, but it will protect your community from Covid. Conservatives would do well to remember this.

These people are beyond contempt.

huxleypiggles
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

When Rick H reads this you’ll cop it 😀

Cristi.Neagu
4 years ago

There you go. They keep denying that there are any plans for vaccine passports so that the media can call us all conspiracy theorists because “government officials have insisted there are no plans to introduce vaccine passports”. And then they sneak in the legislation before anyone can notice, complain, or protest, and then the media can call us anti-vaxxers when we point out that we were right all along.
This is the same game plan over and over again. Government should not have this level of power under any circumstance. They are supposed to work for us. They’re public servants. They need to be reminded of their place.

Sforzesca
Sforzesca
4 years ago

Drunk with power personified.

What a toxic mix, a politician who knows nothing all about virology, immunology or humanity.

Still, he’s lining himself and Wales up for some brownie points from his Lords and Masters – Wales first in the UK for green passports eh?

The old bat
4 years ago

And this for a so called variant that few in this country have, apparently no one has died from it, and it’s on a par with a common cold. It’s utter madness – well, they’ve either gone mad or they have an ulterior motive.
Has anyone else seen that they are blaming Covid for heart arrhythmia now? I bloody knew they would do that – nothing to do with vaccines, oh no. Does anyone else feel like they are the only sane person in the asylum?

BurlingtonBertie
4 years ago
Reply to  The old bat

Email group I’m in of medics, virologists, epidemiologists etc have been discussing this & the consensus is that it’s nothing to do with covid, just a coronavirus that hadn’t previously been isolated, so nothing to see here!

Lister of Smeg
Lister of Smeg
4 years ago

Yeah, because vaccine passes have worked soooo well everywhere else they’ve been implemented, in comparison to England or better still, Sweden…

MizakeTheMizan
4 years ago

Like bollocks it will be decided at the last minute. It was decided years ago.

Anti_socialist
4 years ago

Covid outbreak on cruise ship with over 3,000 passengers

Ten people have tested positive for Covid on board a Norwegian Cruise Line ship bound for New Orleans, despite the strict rules in place that required that all passengers and crew be vaccinated.

Anti_socialist
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

It seems to me better policy to only allow unvaccinated in pubs, clubs & boats they’re the only healthy ones left & it would give me confidence i’m surrounded by reasonable responsible, intelligent people.

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

In theory, but I refuse to prove I’m “unvaccinated”.

Lowe
4 years ago
Reply to  Hugh

The landlord just needs to hang a syringe above the bar. If a customer says “what’s that for?”, you know they’re unjabbed.

Arfur Mo
Arfur Mo
4 years ago
Reply to  Lowe

Intravenous injection of the landlord’s finest best bitter?

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

They should all be thrown overboard. And the ship torpedoed. It’s the only way to stop the spread of The Virus.

Sandra Barwick
Sandra Barwick
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

Tested positive. Any symptoms, though? One person was obviously incubating the virus on arrival on board, and we know the vaccines don’t prevent infection.
Robert Malone has just put the SA study up on his Substack which claims Omightycon evades natural immunity because of repeat positive tests. We all know (leaving out the dodgy testing issue) that you can’t prevent viruses from entering the nose, unless you wear space suit type protection. If you test enough, you will get some positive tests of people with NI. How many are even slightly symptomatic?

A Heretic
A Heretic
4 years ago

Drakeford also mentioned that imposing vaccine passports on pubs would not have been taken into consideration if the Omicron variant had never emerged.

no shit, that’s exactly why it’s suddenly emerged.

Annie
4 years ago
Reply to  A Heretic

It’s a blatant lie. He was threatening it weeks ago, before moronic was invented.

Victoria
4 years ago

WALES – Mark Drakeford. Shows the contempt he feels for those he serves.

video clip:

“Let’s hope no one is bright enough to ask is that ‘should’ as in regulation or ‘should’ as in advice”

#COVID19 #Lockdown

https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1466345540170440711

E511F482-119A-476F-935A-BDC7CCF78685.jpeg
Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago
Reply to  Victoria

‘WALES – Mark Drakeford. Shows the contempt he feels for those he serves.’

I beg to differ. More accurate would be ‘Shows the contempt he feels for those he regards as slaves and chattels’

An evil disgusting man who must be shown the errors of his ways

rayc
rayc
4 years ago

Translation: “we’ve already made the decision, but we wish to maintain appearances”.

Annie
4 years ago

At the last minute. So that pubs can’t plan. Just like last year when they had, ‘at the last minute’, to throw out all the supplies they’d laid in for Christmas bookings already made.
Our riding centre lost £1500 worth of bookings ‘at the last minute’. Christmas pony ride, little girl? Excited? Been looking forward to it for weeks? Fuck off, is the message from the First Tyrant.

huxleypiggles
4 years ago
Reply to  Annie

And I firmly anticipate Bozo pulling some sort of similar stunt.

Backlash
Backlash
4 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Before scuttling off to his own large drunken parties.

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

Winston Smith
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

2 down votes! What the fuck?

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  Winston Smith

Some people don’t like violence. I guess anyone can go up to them and punch them forever, then. They’ll never hit back.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  Winston Smith

77th Brigade on Sunday overtime.

John Dee
4 years ago

Drakeford – what happens when a lack of chin meets political ambition in a small country that inexplicably keeps electing this waste of a suit.

huxleypiggles
4 years ago
Reply to  John Dee

I can think of a suit that would be more appropriate for this oxygen thief.

Schrodinger
4 years ago

“Mr Drakeford said he could not claim the Covid pass scheme was making a difference”

They all need taking back to the asylum.PDQ.

Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
4 years ago

On the Dark Horse podcast I heard that Delta prevalence among unvaccinated is 8% and the rest is evenly balanced among the other variants. Among the vaccinated it’s 95%. When are we going to acknowledge that vaccinating into a pandemic with a leaky vaccine promotes the evolution of more infectious variants that will eventually escape immunity?

BurlingtonBertie
4 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

I had someone say that the research on leaky vaccines was old so couldn’t be happening!
A vile human being who believes in the sanctity of the Holy Vaccine & that all should be forcibly jabbed.

nbritt58
4 years ago

I live in Wales and one thing is very obvious; it’s the passive acceptance of all this authoritarian $h1t by the people. Wales is traditional a Labour stronghold and many couldn’t contemplate not voting for them. TBH the other prominent parties are as bad. Plaid cymru’s treachery and collaboration are keeping this rancid administration afloat. Drakeford’s attitude to Welsh people is truly contemptuous. I just wish people here would wake up to the fact they are on the receiving end of an abusive relationship with their politicians.

artfelix
4 years ago
Reply to  nbritt58

I grew up in Wales – like all Celtic countries, its people are culturally inclined to servitude. Whether it’s Westminster, the Church, or Covid, they aren’t happy if they aren’t kneeling to someone or something, while singing songs about how much of a victim they are. It’s in the blood.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  artfelix

Looks like the Welsh will be the first for the chop along with the Scots. Though Boris will butcher the rest of us not too long after.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  nbritt58

Odd as lots of areas strongly backed Brexit so they don’t vote how Labour instruct on all things, although the MSM were not able to totally block average population from counter narrative facts like the all out censorship at present.

Squire Western
Squire Western
4 years ago

Since no-one is going to get a Covid test so that they can go to the pub, effectively this is a ban on going to the pub unless you have been vaccinated. Well I am not going to participate in this scheme even though I have been vaccinated, so the pubs will lose out. I suggest the hospitality industry responds by banning all Senedd members who vote for this measure from all pubs and restaurants for ever.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  Squire Western

Or they could just spit in their drinks.

JohnK
4 years ago
Reply to  Squire Western

Or intelligent traders could advise potential customers to declare themselves exempt (via the back door, as it were), and carry on as best they can. No doubt certain politicians will be on a ‘black list’, as well.

RichardTechnik
RichardTechnik
4 years ago
Reply to  Squire Western

Drakeford has been banned from much of NE Wales until end March next year since last Dec for his antiscial behaviour. https://www.rhyljournal.co.uk/news/18911920.mark-drakeford-wales-first-minister-barred-every-pub-west-conwy/

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

It’s been a tyranny for a long time

They plastered all over the press that Labour AM Carl Sargeant was to be investigated for sexual misconduct. They refused to tell Sargeant the nature of the allegations or who the complainants were. He went home and hung himself. This is what they do to their own if they consider them a threat. The nature of the complaints have remained secret ever since

When an opposition AM stood for re election they instructed the civil servants to lock the voters out of the polling station

When they were not meeting the target for ambulance response times they just changed the criteria of what was an emergency. Heart attacks and strokes were removed from the list. Thousands died and the targets were met

The country is rancid with corruption and bullying

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

Yes Prime Minister.

I am Spartacas
4 years ago

FC3rowuXEAcV-B8.jpg
Arfur Mo
Arfur Mo
4 years ago
Reply to  CGL

She will also have to correct the UN Declaration of Human Rights, numerous medical ethics statements (those were the days) and the manufacturers’ own drug admission instructions.

I love the smell of a guilty conscience in the morning.

tom171uk
4 years ago

So, they are only considering this bullshit because of the appearance of the omicron variant. Really? I am pretty sure that, in the absence of omicron, they would have dreamed up some other excuse.

I am Spartacas
4 years ago

….

Screenshot 2021-12-05 at 17-36-27 Lee Hurst - Anti-vaxxer (apparently) ( LeeHurstComic) Twitter.png
BoJo The Great
BoJo The Great
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

This IS a mystery?

CynicalRealist
4 years ago
Reply to  BoJo The Great

There’s no clue at all in the photo as to why he might have been particularly susceptible, is there?!

milesahead
milesahead
4 years ago
Reply to  CynicalRealist

Wasn’t he double-jabbed, as well?

CGL
CGL
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

Shall we all diagnose his underlying condition for him?

Arfur Mo
Arfur Mo
4 years ago
Reply to  CGL

Radical brainectomy?

rtaylor
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

“I never thought to consider how graphene oxide would mix with toxins from tattoos and obesity. I am a victim.”

huxleypiggles
4 years ago

What he’s really saying:

“The decision was taken back in March 2020 but we want to keep everybody on tenterhooks until this coming Friday when we will confirm the extension of passports to pubs.

We know the “vaccines” neither stop transmission nor prevent infection but if we can force a few more to take the injection that’s excellent and in line with my orders. We might also close some more pubs as a result which would be an excellent way of topping up my Christmas bonus from Billy.”

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles
PaulMac66
PaulMac66
4 years ago

See the covid passport was a success on that Norwegian cruise ship.

Rogerborg
4 years ago

people would feel confident that everybody else in that setting were either vaccinated or had taken a lateral flow test

No Irish, no blacks, no unvaxxed.

BoJo The Great
BoJo The Great
4 years ago

Very rarely do I impulsively respond to an article with an audible yell of “What a load of bollocks!”. This moment of spontaneity was in response to the first bit that says passports wouldn’t have been considered, if it were not for the dreaded Omicron. Bollocks!!

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  BoJo The Great

Omicron is ‘the variant’ that was predicted to arrive at this very time. They think the people are stupid. And the people keep proving this to them time and time again!

If the pubs are closed, it’s round to Drakeford’s house for a Christmas dinner then!