HEALTH minister Vaughan Gething has not ruled out further restrictions in Wales ahead of Christmas or changes to the relaxation of measures over the festive period should cases continue to rise.

Speaking at a press conference in Cardiff on Monday, Mr Gething said "nothing was off the table" as he confirmed cases were rising in all but one local authority area in Wales.

Last week, Mark Drakeford ruled out further measures being taken before the Christmas relaxation of restrictions on travel and household mixing, adding that the relaxation would not be reviewed because “many people will have made plans”.

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However, when asked whether further action could be taken before Christmas, Mr Gething said: "Every option is still available to us.

"We'll continue to have those discussions, we'll continue to get evidence from our chief medical officer and chief scientific advisors. We'll also take evidence from the chief executive of NHS Wales about the reality of service pressures and we'll then have to make balanced choices.

"But we then have to think about the real-world impact in terms of lives and livelihoods too, so these are not straightforward choices, but we will of course live up to our responsibility to consider the evidence, and whether we act or not, the government will be responsible for those choices.

"We are asking people across Wales to be responsible with the choices they take and how they live their day-to-day lives."

And when questioned about the five-day UK-wide relaxation of rules, the minister said "nothing is off the table".

"We have to consider each day what choices we are going to make," he said. "It's certainly not our preference to interrupt because there is a lot of capital invested in that easing of the rules, which all four countries signed up to.

"But you can never say never, because if the virus continues to grow we will need to make choices to keep people safe.

"Nothing is off the table, but it does rely on the choices each of us are prepared to make."

A final decision on the post-Christmas outlook will be made on Tuesday, December 22, Mr Gething said.

"The first minister indicated that unless we see a significant reduction in cases, we'd need to make that final call on December 22, then determine whether or not we are going to move into level four," said Mr Gething.

"It would not be the case that the different forms of non-essential retail would necessarily continue after Christmas Day itself. It would be unusual if we ended up saying the whole of Wales would be going into level four, but we nevertheless had Boxing Day sales.

"Before any post-Christmas period, regardless of what level we are, there will be continued restrictions, and that's because we know we are not going to get to a position where the coronavirus rates crash into the low prevalence rates we saw through much the second half of the summer."