THE RE-OPENING of caravan parks poses the biggest threat to residents of north Wales if Covid-19 lockdown restrictions are gradually eased.

That is the stark warning of a veteran Gwynedd health campaigner who says these parts of Wales would benefit from a four-week delay in any major change to restrictions.

Tom Brooks, a retired healthcare and public administration management consultant with experience of epidemiological modelling in various parts of the world, also fears a changing of the two-metre social distancing rule would reinvigorate the virus, possibly resulting in hundreds more deaths.

And, in a report to colleagues on the Community Hospitals Association Committee, Mr Brooks maintains that the risk to individuals in north Wales remains ’significantly higher’ than the remainder of Wales.

“Even more concerning is that if we receive our usual 1,250,000 tourists a week, as is predicted as likely in late July or August, our new infections per day will rise to triple our current rate within days given the level of infection in the north-west of England,” he said.

“Opening caravan parks is our biggest threat. The safe strategy for north Wales is not to allow holiday parks to open until three weeks after they have been open in England.

“Two weeks after holiday parks have opened in England we will know how acceptable or bad the impact has been and Wales can then finally act accordingly.”

Mr Brooks’s report on the situation in north and mid Wales went before the CHAC, a broad mix of healthcare professionals who meet weekly on Zoom to share experiences of the impact of, and response to, the Covid-19 virus in different parts of the UK.

“(Health) Minister Gething claims that the R (reproduction) rate for counties in Wales is not estimated,” he said. “Perhaps that is why so little attention appears to be made to the outbreak in north Wales.

“Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board is well aware of the level of healthcare activity that they still have to devote to the Covid illness.

“However, their daily Covid briefings throw no light on the cause of the relatively high levels of viral activity in north Wales.”

Mr Brooks claims that while current lockdown rules combined with good tracking and tracing promised to continue to drive down infection rates, a slow easing of restrictions would inevitably mean residents coming into contact with more and more people.

“If over the next few weeks, in addition to relaxing from two metres to one, visitors return to North Wales, the statistics change dramatically,” he continued. “We will be able to measure in practice how much impact the combined relaxation of tourism and social distancing will have.

“If R rises to 1.2 then in eight weeks after relaxation we will be back at 11 April levels of infection and hundreds more deaths are likely in north Wales.”