Mark Drakeford today confirmed that all of Wales is preparing to move into “Alert Level 0” causing restrictions to lift from 6am tomorrow.

During the lunchtime update today - Friday, August 6 - the Wales First Minister confirmed that as of tomorrow morning, venues will have the flexibility to decide upon what “reasonable measures” they must implement to keep staff and customers safe.

This means that the safety measures in place in each venue will be different to suit that venues needs - whether that be with or without face masks, track and trace detail collections or limits on the number of people allowed inside.

Businesses will be legally required to implement their measures as well as carrying out the obligatory risk assessments in order to keep staff and customers safe from exposure to Coronavirus.

He said: “Covid risk assessments will be a legal requirement for all businesses, employers and event organisers. Now they will have greater flexibility about the measures they must put in place based on that risk assessment to reduce exposure to the virus, but the measures that are identified must be implemented, and here in Wales, the advice of the Welsh Government continues to be that people should work from home wherever that is possible.

“Face coverings will continue to be a legal requirement in indoor places except for education and hospitality settings, and of course they will be still required on public transport and when visiting hospitals or care homes.”

The Brecon & Radnor Express asked the first minister at todays Coronavirus update if, while no longer a Welsh Government requirement, businesses could choose for masks to remain a requirement for customers as a “reasonable measure” based off the risk assessment.

Mr Drakeford responded: “Face coverings are still potentially part of a suite of reasonable measures that an employer could take, or a restaurant could take, and they could decide that even though it’s no longer obligatory in the way that it was in hospitality settings before, they would want to maintain it in the suite of measures that they were putting in place - so yes, that’s part of that new flexibility.”

The newspaper also asked Mr Drakeford whether venues will still be required to collect customer details for track and trace purposes.

Against, Mr Drakeford said it was down to the venue’s discretion following their risk assessments and implementation of “reasonable measures”.

“There will no longer be a legal obligation on hospitality owners to collect the contact details of people, but that would not prevent a restaurant or a pub deciding to collect contact details if they decided the circumstances merited that”.

Mr Drakeford emphasised that the Test, Trace and Protect (TTP) service in Wales will still be operating, however it will be in a different capacity to before.

The Labour first minister, who described the TTP service as “very successful” in Wales, said: “The track and trace system will still be here.

“While self-isolation for people who have been doubly vaccinated will no longer be required in Wales, people still will be contacted by the TTP system to give them advice, to advise them that they should take a PCR test on day two and day eight [following exposure to a positive case], to advise them not to go in contact with vulnerable relatives in the days after they’ve been in contact with someone who has fallen ill with the virus.

“So the TTP system will still be here, will still be contacting people, but with a slightly different purpose - it’ll be with a warn and inform message rather than an instruction to self-isolate.”