Wales not being aligned with the rest of the UK on face coverings during the pandemic was “confusing for the public”, a top medic has told the COVID Inquiry.
Wales‘s chief medical officer (CMO) told the inquiry that he “couldn’t see a good argument for mandating, on a public health basis, the use of face coverings”.
This is the second of three weeks of hearings taking place in Cardiff, focusing on the decisions taken by the Welsh government during the pandemic.
Read more: The families in Wales who want answers from COVID Inquiry
Wales was the last UK nation to recommend face coverings, with advice being given on 9 June 2020.
Similar advice was issued in Scotland on 28 April, in Northern Ireland on 7 May and in England on 11 May.
Sir Frank Atherton acknowledged that it was an “extremely difficult” decision.
“I felt I was putting ministers in actually quite a difficult position, because I was taking perhaps a slightly different position to my other CMO colleagues on this one,” he added.
“It became confusing for the public that we were not aligned and that we were doing something slightly different on face coverings.”
Sir Frank added that he was “trying to make sure that ministers understood that this was their decision, but [his] advice was that the evidence was not robust”.
Meeting notes seen by the inquiry, showed first minister Mark Drakeford had claimed the public were “completely mystified” why face masks were not mandatory in Welsh supermarkets.
Sir Frank’s notes from the pandemic referred to an “omnishambles”.
He told the inquiry this was in reference to his frustration that “sometimes information came from UK level into Wales very late and left [Wales] on the backfoot on some issues”.
With the benefit of hindsight, Sir Frank said he “probably would” have recommended mandating face coverings.
“With the caveat that I suspect it would have been subject to legal challenges, because there wasn’t good evidence to support,” he added.
Read more:
Drakeford ‘regularly’ used WhatsApp to ‘clarify COVID rules’
PPE supply in Welsh care homes was ‘inconsistent’
First minister expected UK government to lead COVID response
Sir Frank also told the inquiry he felt like he’d “lost control of emails” in the early stages of the pandemic and that it “put an unprecedented level of pressure” on his office and the wider health protection team.
The CMO, who has served in the role since 2016, said additional administrative support was not provided until May 2020 and that he felt like “an outlier” due to a “lack of support” around him.
In August 2020, the inquiry heard Sir Frank had written to Dr Andrew Goodall, Wales’s director general for health and social services, to “flag significant concerns about [the Welsh government’s] ability to manage the next phase of the pandemic”.
The inquiry continues.