The number of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in Wales has risen, but the number of people requiring critical care has remained stable.
The Covid case rate in Wales has been rising every day for the past 12 days, according to Public Health Wales.
However, this has not resulted in a large increase in the number of people in need of critical care, which has increased from an average of 10 to 11.
dr Ami Jones, an adviser to Aneurin Bevan’s health department, said more staff had been out of work because of Covid.
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She said: “We’ve been pretty quiet about Covid in ICU lately, but I’ve noticed in my group of colleagues that we’ve made a lot of people sick.
“I think it affects the general public. I think there’s a lot of that out there.”
The Covid case rate – which measures the number of new infections per 100,000 people over seven days – has risen on each of the last 12 days to stand at 290.7 on Thursday.
This is more than eight times lower than the peak in early January, but testing requirements have since changed as asymptomatic people no longer require PCR testing after a positive lateral flow, meaning this figure is likely to be higher.
In the last week, twice as many cases were sequenced with the subvariant of Omicron (BA.2) than with the major variant of Omicron (BA.1).
It is the most dominant variant in all parts of Wales except Anglesey and Gwynedd.
The number of people hospitalized with Covid has risen slightly – to an average of 26 a day from 21 in the past week, and around 80% of hospitalized patients with Covid have been treated for something else.
Three Health Departments in Wales have not had any patients in intensive care for Covid for more than a week.
One of them is the health authority of Dr. Jones Aneurin Bevan, who has been without intensive care patients for eight days, while Swansea Bay and Cwm Taf Morgannwg health authorities have been without for 13 days.
The number of people in intensive care is a third of the total at the same time a year ago.
The Welsh Government hopes to lift Covid restrictions on face masks and self-isolation by the end of March, with free testing ending in June.
But dr Jones told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast she thinks masks and free testing should remain.
She said: “Personally, I will continue to wear masks indoors in public places as they lift restrictions.
“I don’t want to catch Covid, I don’t want to be unemployed and not able to do my job, so I think that’s the concern of a lot of us now.
“We’re not as concerned about ending up in the hospital and dying … but we’re concerned about the kind of disruption to normal life it would cause.”
She added that free trials are a “key element” in giving people “the ability to act sensibly”.
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