PEOPLE who are classed as extremely clinically vulnerable will be asked to shield until the end of March, the first minister has confirmed.

While announcing the results of the latest review into alert level four measures in Wales, Mark Drakeford said that although there has been a "steady fall" in cases, it was still too early to start lifting restrictions.

"We’ve fallen back from the peak of more than 600 cases per 100,000 people to 175 cases [per 100,000 people] today," he said.

READ MORE:

"Now this is really encouraging and it is the result of your efforts and the sacrifices which people right across Wales have made over the last six weeks to turn back the tide of coronavirus, but at 175, that is still a high figure.

"We know that the majority of new cases in most parts of Wales will now be the new highly contagious strain of the virus which has swept across the country.

"And although the number of people with coronavirus in hospital is starting to stabilise the NHS is still under significant pressure.

"There are some 1,300 people so ill with confirmed coronavirus that they need hospital treatment, and we have a similar number of people in hospital who are recovering from the disease.

"All this means that despite the real progress that we have made, it is too early to start lifting the lockdown restrictions.

"The advice for people who are extremely clinically vulnerable - the shielded group - which is not to go to work or to school, if they are of that age, outside the home is also being extended to March 31.

"We will all need to stay at home and work from home for a while longer.

"That will give us the time we need to reduce rates of coronavirus to even lower levels as the vaccine continues to be rolled out to even more people in the top priority groups.

"When it comes to lifting the restrictions here in Wales we will take the same approach as we adopted during the first lockdown – careful, gradual, and always with public health safety at the forefront of our decisions.

"If we move too quickly there is a very real risk that cases will immediately begin to shoot back up again and everyone's hard work over this winter will be lost."