MARK Drakeford has stated that he hopes the NHS will not be entirely consumed by the battle against coronavirus as Wales heads into the new year.
The first minister was speaking as part of the Welsh Government's coronavirus update briefing earlier today.
He said: "I don't want to see the NHS become a national Covid service, rather than a national health service.
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"We must work to get to the middle of next month with an NHS able to deal with coronavirus, but also able to do everything else it needs to do.
"It is not an 'at all costs' strategy.
"We don't want to go into permanent reverse."
The new strain of the virus has now infected more than 600 people in Wales.
However, the first minister said that this is "almost certainly" an underestimation.
"We expect these numbers to be well below the numbers actually in circulation," he said.
He said that action taken to reduce the planned relaxation period over Christmas were not solely a result of the spread of the new variant.
"When you have a better sense of the cause, you have a better sense of what action to take," he said.
"The need to take the action as quickly as possible was what drove the decision we made at the weekend."
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