Coronavirus cases continue to rise across Wales as GP surgeries in West Wales prepare to take delivery of the Oxford vaccine this week.

The latest figures show 91 new cases in Carmarthenshire, 39 new cases in Pembrokeshire, 15 in Ceredigion, 69 in Powys and 34 in Gwynedd.

In Wales, 1,793 new cases have been confirmed and 17 new deaths have also been reported by Public Health Wales.

Hywel Dda Health Board, which covers Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire has now recorded 284 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic with Betsi Cadwaladr in North Wales recording 534 deaths and Powys, 37.

Giving the daily update, Dr Giri Shankar, incident director for the outbreak response at Public Health Wales, said: “The number of positive coronavirus cases remains extremely high in Wales and is cause for serious concern.

“All of Wales remains in lockdown. We ask that the public adopts the same mindset for this lockdown as they did in March 2020.

“We understand that people are fatigued but with a more transmissible variant of coronavirus circulating across Wales it is vital that we all keep to the lockdown restrictions in place.

“This means stay at home, exercise outdoors alone or with members of your household or support bubble and if possible, only once a day. Shop online but if you must visit shops do this alone.

“The education minister has announced that all schools and colleges will continue with online learning until at least 29 January, and will remain that way until the February half term unless there is a significant reduction in transmission.

“In addition, Welsh Government have confirmed that non-essential retail, hospitality venues, licensed premises and leisure facilities will remain closed. Measures in shops and workplaces which remain open will be strengthened, including closing all showrooms, although they will still be able to operate click and collect services.

“The rollout of the Pfizer BioNTech and AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines continues in Wales with the the recently Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved Moderna vaccine to be incorporated into the programme soon.”

Health minister Vaughan Gething has today published the Welsh Government’s Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy, which sets out three key milestones.

It comes as the latest figures show more than 86,000 people have received the vaccine. Wales will publish daily vaccine figures from today.

The three milestones set out in the plan are:

By mid February – all care home residents and staff; frontline health and social care staff; everyone over 70 and everyone who is clinically extremely vulnerable will have been offered vaccination.

By the spring – vaccination will have been offered to all the other phase one priority groups. This is everyone over 50 and everyone who is at-risk because they have an underlying health condition.

By the autumn – vaccination will have been offered to all other eligible adults in Wales, in line with any guidance issued by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

In total, around 2.5m people throughout Wales could be offered Covid vaccines by September, depending on further advice from the JCVI.

Mr Gething said: “The Covid vaccines offer our best hope of a return to the normality we are looking forward to after such a difficult year, which has turned all our lives upside down.

“Delivering this vaccination programme to the people in Wales is a huge task but an enormous amount of work is going on to make it a success.

“We are making good progress with thousands more people being vaccinated every day.

“Over the coming week we will see the programme pick up further speed with more clinics opening and the first vaccines to be given by pharmacists.”