RHUN AP IORWERTH AM, Plaid Cymru’s Shadow Health Minister, has said Health Minister Vaughan Gething was choosing to “rewrite history” rather than address the fact that his Government was “woefully behind schedule with testing”.
Welsh Government Health Minister Vaughan Gething said on BBC Radio Wales Breakfast this morning that he “never said at this point we’d be at 5,000 tests”.
Mr ap Iorwerth quoted a statement from the Minister from the 21st of March which said, that from 7 April “testing will increase by a further 2,000 tests per day, to a total of 8,000 daily”.
The Shadow Health Minister said that rather than being on 100,000 tests a day, Wales was on a fifth of that and said missing the targets was “not good enough” and was hampering “our ability to combat the outbreak”.
ap Iorwerth added,
“Rather than address that fact that Welsh Government is woefully behind schedule with testing, the Minister is choosing instead to rewrite history.
“He now suggests he only somehow made a vague reference to 5000 being a loose target for the middle of April, and that he shouldn’t be held to that. Let me quote from a statement from the Minister Himself on March 21st “From 7 April, testing will increase by a further 2,000 tests per day, to a total of 8,000 daily’. There’s nothing ambiguous in it.
“I supported that 8000-a-day target. It was a good target to set. But rather than 100,000 tests having been carried out we’re on about a FIFTH of that. It’s not good enough and it’s hampering our ability to combat the outbreak.”
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