Table 1 An overview of The Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Wales) Regulations 2020′ implemented in Wales on 24th March 2020 [60]

The regulations:

• provided Welsh Ministers, registered public health officials and police constables the right to detain people contaminated or infected with coronavirus.

• required some business premises to close (those classed as non-essential such as leisure and hospitality) and required those allowed to remain open (those classed as essential, such as food retailers and supermarkets), to put specific measures in place to ensure adequate social distancing.

• restricted individuals movements so that they were prohibited to leave the place they were living without a ‘reasonable excuse’. The regulations included examples of a ‘reasonable excuse’ for example, shopping for food, taking physical exercise once a day, obtaining medical assistance and travelling to a place of work where it was ‘not reasonable and practicable to work from home’.

• closed places of worship, apart from in limited circumstances such as in relation to funerals.

• required Natural Resources Wales (the environment agency for Wales), local authorities, National Park Authorities and the National Trust to close public footpaths and access land, where the use of a path or land posed a high risk of spreading coronavirus.

• changed elements of planning restrictions. The UK Government also made regulations and changes in non-devolved areas, for example, for statutory sick pay, Universal Credit and other welfare benefit claims.

Welsh Parliament also approved other health related legislation including some changes for example, to the regulations for Mental Health Tribunals, amended rules for social care standards.

Although there was coordination in health policy across the UK in respect to addressing the pandemic (and the Chief Medical Officers worked closely to develop a shared evidence base for the four national governments), Welsh policy diverged in places from that of England. Welsh Government policy included secondary legislation, for example, closing all caravan parks in Wales to reduce people travelling to these in order to isolate or ‘lockdown’.