Welcome to the How to Use Wikitree video series hosted by Wikitree's U.S. Black Heritage Project. Video number one, Profiles. In this video you will learn the definition of a Wikitree profile, what features you can find on a Wikitree profile, and how to use them. First, let's look at the difference between a Wikitree profile and a Wikipedia page. People often get them confused because they both have the word wiki in their names. These are some general differences between the two. At Wikitree, profiles represent every person who ever existed. At Wikipedia, a page represents people who were notable, noteworthy, and famous. Wikitree is primarily family focused, whereas Wikipedia is primarily fact focused. Wikitree focuses on genealogy sources such as birth, marriage, death, and census records. Wikipedia focuses on biographies, encyclopedias, and news sources such as newspapers for their information. Wikitree records people in a family tree format, whereas Wikipedia only has individual pages that may have links to other pages. Now let's look at a Wikitree profile and its parts and features. This profile is for American notable Ida B. Wells. You can tell this profile represents her because both her photo and her name with birth and death dates are at the top. Starting at the top left, this is the primary photo for Ida. There are other photos attached to this profile, but when a profile manager designates one as the primary photo, it shows up here. Next is her name at birth with her maiden name in parentheses, followed by the last name she had when she died. Next are four very helpful hyperlink shortcuts that you'll want to use over and over. When you click on the first one, ID, it will copy the wiki ID for this profile. Her wiki ID can also be found here in the URL and down here next to the date created. The wiki ID is a unique ID that belongs to each profile on Wikitree and will help you tell other people how to easily find this profile. The second hyperlink link will give you the code to link Ida's profile elsewhere on Wikitree. For example, if I go to this space page and I paste the link code, click Save, this will now be linked to Ida's profile. If you prefer not to have the dates in the hyperlink, you can delete those from the code. If you just want her name, I'll delete that, click Save, and we now have just her name in the link. The next hyperlink URL will give you the URL which you can give to anyone to lead them back to this profile. And finally, Site will give you a link citation you can use anywhere to cite this profile as a source. I'll go back to this space page, paste the citation, save the changes, and this is what it will look like wherever you choose to paste that. Going across, next we can see the privacy lock, which in this case is a clear lock. This means it is completely viewable and is editable by other Wikitree members who have signed the honor code. If we click on the Privacy tab, we can see the other six levels of privacy at Wikitree. You can see there is only one option available for Ida because she was born over 150 years ago. All of those profiles must be in open locked. Also because she is notable, she must have an open profile for Wikitree collaboration. The only exception to this rule is living notables. To learn more about the seven levels of privacy, click on any one of these links and it will take you to the Privacy Help page. You can also try the different levels of privacy by choosing a different one. There will be radio buttons available next to each one for the profiles your manager of and then clicking the profile public view here, this tab, To see the profile the same ways others who are not profile managers or on the trusted list will see it. While we are on the Privacy tab, let us look at one other important feature by scrolling down. You can add others to the trusted list by placing their email address in this box and clicking add this person. If you are not the profile manager of a profile, this is the view that you will see. If you wish to be added to the trusted list or as profile manager, click on the trusted list request link right here. When you click on this, you will have a box available here to give them a message, telling them why you would like to be on the trusted list. This will send the request by email to the profile manager. Next, let's look at the other tabs on a profile. Clicking on the private view tab will take you back to the regular view for the profile. The changes tab will show you all of the edits that have been made to a profile and who made them. By clicking on the change that was made, you will see a side-by-side view of the before and after change. In this example, you can see a category was added to the profile for Lloyd Alexander. The family trees and tools tab will take you to the family tree view for IDA. By clicking on the images tab, you will see all of the images that have been attached to this profile. This is also where you can upload any additional copyright free images or images you have permission to use by clicking on this link. We will discuss the edit tab in video number 3 how to edit a profile. Next, let's go to the information overview section for IDA. I'll click on the profile private view to see her regular view and this is the information snapshot for IDA. This will list all the names, dates and locations associated with her. First is her birth date and her birth location. If you click on this little pin right next to it, you will be taken straight to Google Maps for that location. Next, her parents and siblings are listed and linked. When I scroll, you'll notice when I scroll over one of these links it will give you a snapshot view of that person. Clicking on the ancestor button is another way to quickly see IDA's family tree view. You can click the hide ancestors button to collapse that view. Next, you will see her husband and the marriage date and location of where they were married. And there's another location pin for that location. Below that are her children in birth order. If you click the descendants button, you will be shown a descendants tree. And again, you can click the hide descendants button to collapse that view. Finally, you have her death date and location and another map pin for this location. Below her information, her dates and locations, you will see the profile managers are listed. You can send them a private message regarding this profile by clicking on the send private message link. In the green box, you will once again see IDA's wiki ID, the date the profile was created and the date it was last modified. In this case, it was last modified on October 13, 2022. If the date it was last edited was recent, you'll also see what that most recent change was. Before we move down the profile, let's look over here on the right up here at the top. If someone has asked a question about a profile in our G2G forum and they linked this profile to that question, you will see those questions here. This can be very helpful if people have asked research questions regarding IDA and people have discussed additional information. If a relative is within 8 degrees of IDA and has taken a DNA test and has added that test information to their wiki tree profile, it will be up here right here. Currently, no one within 8 degrees has added their DNA information. Next, going down is another view of each of the images that are attached to her profile. When you click on any of these photos, it will give you more information, including the source of where the photo came from and who uploaded it. If you have a photo that you're particularly proud of or you find very interesting, you can click on this button share on G2G to share it with wiki tree wide. When you click on this button, it will already set up a post ready for it to go and all you have to do is edit this information right here, explaining more information about the photo and why you shared it. You will already have her profile linked and all you have to do is click the Ask the Question button. Let's go back to IDA's profile by clicking the back button. Because this profile is notable and managed by a project, the very first item you will see at the top is what we call a project box. And this links to the project's homepage. If you want more information about any projects that manage profile, just click on that link and it will take you straight to their project's homepage. It will also give you information on those project homepages, how to join the projects if you're interested in that. Often you will see what we call stickers at the top of a profile. These are visual features of a part of the person's life. In this case, we have a sticker that declares IDA to be notable and a sticker that tells us that she was a suffragist. Please see the video on how to use stickers for more information on this fun feature. As I scroll, you will see IDA's biography followed by the sources down here at the bottom that were used to create this profile. Many times the sources will have links that take you straight to the document itself, so you can click on these links to see them. Scrolling down further. If you knew the person personally, you can add a memory right here by clicking this button, post new memory. Here we have the comment section. Clicking on the post new comment button is another way to communicate with profile managers. They will receive an email about your comment. You can ask a question about the person or offer new information that could be added to this profile. Please don't post any comments about how you're related to the person since hundreds or even thousands of people could also be related. And these comments stay on this profile forever. Instead, you can add that information to your personal profile or use the descendant sticker. Below the comment section, we have the matching and merging section. This is where you can propose a merge if you find a duplicate profile for IDA since we only have one profile for every person who ever existed. That means we can't have a duplicate. Here we have the unmerged match section. If you think you found a duplicate but you're not quite sure, more research is needed to check and see if they're duplicates or if they're not, you can propose an unmerged match. Use the rejected match feature when another person has the same name and was born or lived in the same area and time. This will help prevent people from trying to merge their profile since they're so similar but they represent different people. I'm going to skip this connection feature for last because it's such a fun feature and one of my favorites. Right below that, we have what we call the category section. These are similar to tags. We add these to a profile to tell you more about the person and to group them together with other people who have similar features and interests. By clicking on any of them, let's click on NAACP. You will see other people who are also NAACP leaders. See the video on how to use categories for more information on the purpose of categories and how to make best use of them. Now my favorite feature on all of Wikitree, the best for last, is the connection finder. You will see several people linked right here and it also tells how many degrees relationship away from IDA they are. These people change every week based on whatever the connection finder's theme is. This week it is aviators. That's why you see Charles Lindbergh, for instance. IDA is 28 degrees from Charles Lindbergh. When you click on one of these links, it will show you the path between Charles Lindbergh and IDA. And you can see that she is related to Charles Lindbergh through marriage. Every time the color changes from green to yellow, yellow to green, this means that a marriage took place. The last two links down here at the bottom right will show you your connection to IDA B Wells. If I click on the genealogical relationship link, this will tell me how I'm related to IDA through blood. If I click on this, unfortunately it says I'm not related to IDA. So I'm going to go back and choose the your connection and see how I'm connected to her through marriage. In this case, I'm 27 degrees from IDA B Wells and you can see the path it took to get from her down to me. Have fun with this feature. Once you're connected to the global tree, you can go to any profile on WikiTree and click on these two links to see how you're related. But note, these relationships may change slightly over time as more family profiles are added to the tree, possibly making your relationships closer or the accuracy of family lines are improved with more and better sources. Now back to IDA. These were all of the main features of a WikiTree profile. Feel free to try them all out. Click on the links, see where they go. You can right click and open things in a new tab or hit the back button to return where you were in the beginning. The best way to learn how to use all of these features is to create more profiles and try them out. See the next video on how to create a profile for more information on how to do that.


and Iggo's social-cultural think tank with members both in Nigeria and in the diaspora, Nzu Komunna, has called on the Independent National Electro-Commission, INEC, to extend the ongoing continuous voter registration exercise beyond the tether of June 2022 now. That has been the deadline that was set aside by INEC to address the surge in eligible voters. The group has said it has observed the enthusiasm of eligible voters to get registered as well as INEC's assurances that no voter will be disenfranchised, stressing that the commission has demonstrated uncommon patriotism. In a signed statement by the executive secretary of the group, Ngozi Udumoko, the group noted that it had observed the huge turnout of eligible voters, especially youths, for more voter registration across the country. Joining us to shed more light on this is National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee for the Independent National Electro-Commission, INEC, Mr. Festus Okoye. It's good to have you join us, Mr. Okoye. Yeah, thank you so much. Great. It was a beautiful sight for a lot of Nigerians to see what happened in Lagos where we saw, in fact, some people would have wondered if it was a concert that people were going for. But then, of course, it was the turnout for the voter's registration in Lagos State. I also understand that this is being replicated across the country. But there are those who would think that INEC should allow for these voter registration to be continuous because every single day, and Nigerian turns 18, is that something that INEC is capable of doing, and why is it not the case? Well, you know that for this present registration, we started the online pre-registration on the 28th day of June 2021. And in July, we started the physical registration in 37 of our state offices and the 774 of local government areas across the federation. Although we didn't roll out in some local governments or in some local governments on account of security challenges, because we had a meeting with the various political parties, with the civil society groups and organizations, with the security agencies, and we agreed on a rollout and rollback procedure. That if we roll out and we counter-seal the criticalities, we roll back to our offices. And that's exactly what we have been doing. Now, this present challenge we have, this present surge, is something that is likely unusual. This is because this present registration the commission is doing is not a fresh registration. We already have over 85 million Nigerians in our database, those who have registered previously. So this present CBR is only for those who have never ever registered, registered, and those who have thought a thing from the last time we carried out our voter registration process. But what is going on is that those who have lost their PBC, rather than enter our online portal or go and report that they have lost their PBC, we go and register a fresh. Those who PBC have been defaced, we go and register a fresh. Those who want to do voter transfer from one state to the other, from one government to the other, or from one registration area to the other, we register a fresh. And that is not what this entire process is all about. If you look at the figure, we really bring the first and second quarter of registration. You will see that out of the 2,522,458 completed registrations, 1,390,519 were in value. And these are people who engage in multiple or double registration. So this registration is not for everybody. It's for only those who turn 18 and those who have never registered in any election whatsoever. And this thing has been going on for almost a year now. Sometimes our registration officers register one single individual a day. But you know, this 11th hour, a challenge, this 11th hour syndrome is part of the day of our political process. We normally wait until the last minute and until the last hour before we go to register. But we have taken all these things on board. And we have taken the media action to address the acute challenges in some of the states of the Federation. I must say it's a heinous task for INEC to take on. But just to go back to something that you made reference to the fact that there are lots of people who do not necessarily need to register a fresh who are doing so. My question is, the reason why we're having these issues, could it be that maybe the information was not clear enough? People were not educated as to what this CVR is for so that they would not be showing up for those instances. For example, a couple of us still have our temporary voters cards because we were unable to find our, to get our PVCs. And there has to be information as to how we can get those PVCs. And for those who are supposed to be transferring their polling to new polling units, they're supposed to have access to that information.  How many Nigerians have access to the internet and how many of them can get that information if it's not readily put out there in clear words for them to understand? Now, the truth of the matter is that when you go to any of our state or local government offices to register, the reception officer will ask you whether you have registered before. Sometimes 20 people go to these registration centers and ask them whether they have registered before. They will say no. But in truth, and in fact, they have registered before. Some of them live in the cities and they have left their voter cards down there in the village. And they knew this new registration for purpose of entering the market or entering the church or doing one thing or the other. Some people who are married should do transfer. They do to do transfer. They want to go for outright registration. Now, if you come and say that you have lost your permanent voter card, sometimes we require you to provide an app to that bit, showing that you have lost your permanent voter card. And some of our people, when you ask them to provide an app to that bit, they will just simply move to another local government or another registration area and go and register when they ask them whether they have registered before. And we say no. But when we bring the registration to our office and we run our automated biometric and registration system, we will find out that they have registered before. And they have new registration with the classified app in Bali. We've employed the services of traditional robots. We have done direct advocacy. We are using the television. We are using the radio to try to educate our people on some of these issues. Many of our youth have also gone on our online portal to go and utilize the services. But what we are saying is that we recognize the fact that there has been a good challenge in terms of registration. There has been a surge in the registration figures. And based on that, just last week, the commission deployed an additional 209 hybrid machines, including fingerprint cameras and tamar printers to candlestick, to legacy, to the five states of the Southeast and to all your states. So that we can ameliorate the areas of each challenge. But we are on top of the situation and we believe that we will address this presence surge in both our registration figures. I'm going to ask this question walking on eggshells. Why does INEC have to do this all alone? Because I know that it's a stretch. You have elections in a kitty, you're going to have a shun. And of course, you're preparing for the general election. So it's a bit of work for you. Why isn't there a collaboration of sorts? I'm asking because we have banks who take our biometrics. We have the telecommunication companies who take our biometrics. We have the customs, the immigration department, who take our biometrics. Why can't we work with especially these telecommunication companies to help INEC, you know, in some of these registrations instead of stretching itself thin? Only a suggestion and a question. The independent national electoral commission has the highest database of Nigerians. Any other country you can think of, any other organization. We have the data of 55 million Nigerians in our database. What I'm saying is that we have stressed out these registrations in such a way that people will not be stressed. For those who are computer illiterate, for those who can go online, we made it as simple as possible. You just go online, key in all your information.  And if you do that, the process lasts for less than 15 and it's been going on for over a period of one year. But I think that it will not be right for some market leaders to close down the market on these 5,000 of their members on one registration center that has one or two hybrid machines and expect us to do magic. No, that is not the way things are done. We expected the situation. We are in a day. A registration machine with a register may be between 150 individuals per day. And we have stressed out these things over a period of one year. Taking into consideration that at the end of the day, we are going to do what we call display for claims and objections. We are also going to clean up the voter's register. We are also going to print this voter's register and give it to the political parties. Get some ready form for the main election thesis, then print the permanent voter's cast of all the registrants and then get them to come and collect the permanent voter's cast instead of the election. And then stop everything relating to registration of the voting register and revision of the voter's register 90 days to the election. So all these things have to be taken on board in terms of looking at what we do, what we do. So that's why we split up, split the team out. We're filled up. But what you're telling me, it sounds more like you're taking on a lot just as I said at the beginning. And that's what I'm asking. Why can't you enlist people who have also what it takes to get bio data or to get information and then feed it to you making your job easier? Because people go to banks every day. People go to telecommunication companies every day to fix their lines or do whatever, register for their NIN.  So what do you do to reduce that stress? Are there no strategies in sight or maybe let me say, let me use the Nigerian balance in the pipeline that would help you reduce the trouble that you're facing right now? No, I'm not complaining. The commission is not complaining that 5,000 people arrive the registration centre in a day. That is not a complaint. The complaint and the issue is that this registration process has been going on for one year, one whole year. Sometimes our registration officers register one single individual per day. And we say this thing out in such a way that anybody who is deserter of registering we have an opportunity of doing that seamlessly without any form of stress. But the challenge is that most of our people did not utilize this 11 month period. Rather, just because the registration is about to close we now have a surge to the extent that some of our registration centres are overwhelmed. But what we have done is that we have destroyed additional machines and we are going to tackle some of these challenges. In the next few days the commission will reduce the situation and then do whatever it takes to make sure that every Nigerian who is registered and who presents himself or herself to any of our registration officers gets to register. We are not going to give any Nigerians behind and we are going to make sure that people get to register because we believe that they are sovereign right and they also have the right to sign their civic rights by voting for candidates of their choice in many elections. Finally, before I let you go, doctor we have heard many people especially the south-east, the south-south, the south-west complain that before the 2019 elections they felt disenfranchised as they were unable to get their voter cards. They kept saying that every time they showed up they would say, oh, it's not ready and that's how some of them were unable to vote during the elections. It's not that they were not showing up to get those cards but they were not giving the cards.  How are we also certain that we will not hear the same complaints before the 2023 elections? What is INAG doing within its power to make sure that nobody is left out especially those who have registered early enough to get access to those cards? What's the time frame between the registration process and when they can get their cards? For those who registered during the 4th and 2nd quarter of registration the 4th quarter of registration started on the 28th day of June 2021 and then my the 2nd quarter ended on the 14th of January 2020. Those people who registered during that period their cards are ready and have been forwarded to our local government offices as well as go and pick up their cards. For those who registered during the 4th quarter and those who have registered during this 4th quarter we want to make sure that we clean their cards where and at the end of the 2023 election so that they can collect these cards. But you know if we keep on in this project of extending the time and extending the time by the time we are going to clean the permanent voter cards it will be too late for the election and then the issue of getting to go to collect these cards becomes a huge challenge and so we want to complete everything relating to voter registration and get these cards ready send BOK SMS to all the those two cards are ready and then those who have email addresses we contact them to their email addresses and get them to come and collect these cards but no card will be collected by BOKZ every registered voter must collect the card by himself or herself and we are not going to give the card in BOK to any individual or allow anybody to collect any of those cards by BOKZ Well you have a daunting task for BOKZ and BOKZ Thank you very much Mr. Festus Okoye is the of the Independent National Electrical Commission and thank you so much for speaking with us we appreciate it always Thank you so much Well thank you all for being part of the conversation tonight That's it on Plus Politics I'm Marianne Akon Tomorrow we return with more pressing political issues as we talk for development Have a good evening


Prunhawn da, eich gweithio. I'm Andrew Goodall, chief executive of NHS Wales. I will update you about how coronavirus is affecting the NHS. Yesterday, Public Health Wales reported 705 new cases of coronavirus. Overall, we are continuing to see a fall in the rate of cases across Wales since the end of the firebreak, but we continue to see very high numbers of people dying from coronavirus. Over the last month, sadly, Public Health Wales has reported 532 deaths. These are not just numbers. I would like to pass on my personal condolences to all the families who have lost a loved one to coronavirus. We have four levels of escalation in the NHS, which reflect the pressures in our system. Today, there are 18 hospitals reporting levels three or four, the highest levels of pressure. The NHS is continuing to balance winter and emergency pressures with the demands of looking after people who are seriously ill with coronavirus. Since I last spoke to you, the number of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus symptoms has continued to rise. There are some signs that hospital admissions are stabilising, but this is not sufficient to overcome current pressures. There are currently 1,654 COVID-related patients in Welsh hospitals. This is 8% higher than last week. This is equivalent to more than 50 hospital wards across Wales, full of people with coronavirus. There are 62 people in critical care being treated for coronavirus. This is lower than a week ago, but more than a third of our usual critical care capacity is now being used for coronavirus patients. Our normal critical care capacity of 152 beds is full. We currently have 157 people in critical care. We have plans to expand critical care capacity if required. Nearly half of people admitted to hospital with COVID-19 will be there more than a week. A quarter will be in hospital for at least 21 days or more. Some will need even more time and expert care to recover properly. As you would expect, this has a knock-on effect on available bed capacity. This is why I'm concerned about the impact of the demands and pressures on the NHS. The NHS remains open for essential and emergency services and also for routine care, but with high levels of coronavirus infection in our communities and high levels of people with coronavirus in hospitals, services will find it increasingly difficult to operate normally. Tomorrow we will restart publishing NHS performance and waiting time statistics. These were suspended in March as part of the measures to help the NHS focus on the pandemic. I cannot comment on these statistics until their publication, but I do want to give you some insight into just how much the pandemic has transformed everything we do in the NHS. Coronavirus has affected almost every aspect of healthcare from learning how to treat and care for people who are seriously ill with COVID-19 to making physical changes to clinics, surgeries and operating theatres to protect staff and patients from the risk of contracting this highly infectious virus. I referred earlier to critical care and I want to say something about the immense pressures some of our critical care units are facing and give you a snapshot of what staff working in this highly specialised service are experiencing every day. Working in full PPE for a whole shift is hot and difficult. I don't think many of us can imagine what this must be like. There's an increased need for breaks so staff can take off the equipment. COVID and non-COVID patients need to be kept separate in what are often small departments, increasing the workload and complexity for our staff in their care for patients. There's a higher level of staff sickness as critical care staff are affected by the pandemic and may have to self-isolate. Patients being cared for in critical care are the sickest in the hospital. This inevitably has a personal impact on staff. Staff are often redeployed to critical care from other parts of the hospital, such as theatres. This shows just how flexible the NHS can be when under pressure. Outpatient services where we would normally see 3 million people equivalent to the population of Wales every year have also been affected by the pandemic. Clinics are seeing around two-thirds fewer people to ensure they comply with social distancing requirements. To complete the cleaning regimes needed between each appointment these are scheduled for 30 minutes instead of 15 minutes to manage infection risk. But there are some areas like ear, nose and throat and maxilla facial where the risk is higher and an extended wait between appointments is needed. To improve throughput we are running mixed clinics. Clinicians are seeing someone face-to-face and then someone virtually. There has been a significant increase in the number of remote consultations to avoid the need to physically attend. Around one in three of our patients are now seen virtually. The number of outpatients being seen has increased since the start of the pandemic but outpatient numbers are still around a third lower than normal levels. Despite everything we have been doing, waiting lists are increasing because of the impact of the pandemic and the measures that we have put in place to protect people's safety. Unfortunately we will see further increases to these waiting times as we continue to respond to coronavirus during this public health emergency. It's important we consider different approaches to managing patients so wherever possible we redesign services to maintain the flow of patients through the NHS and support access to services in the most appropriate settings for their care. We also need to track patient experience and outcomes in different ways recognising that the way in which people access services is changing and this means our view of NHS performance will be different. Earlier today we announced changes to monitoring cancer patients which better reflects outcomes through the single cancer pathway and this change has been supported by our clinical teams and stakeholders. I want to emphasise that while we are doing everything we can to increase routine activity in the NHS it is not possible to return all services to normal particularly with high numbers of positive coronavirus cases in our communities. The NHS remains under significant pressure from pandemic and winter demands. I want to acknowledge and thank all our health and care staff for their commitment and for everything they are doing to respond to people's needs in these most challenging of circumstances. They are working in a very stressful environment and have been year round. They remain focused on supporting care and treatment for the people of Wales. We want to ensure with your support that the NHS can continue to deliver its services in a safe and accessible manner. You can help us to help you by following the rules keeping your distance from each other, practicing good hygiene, working from home wherever you can and wearing a face mask in indoor public places. Together we will keep Wales safe. Thank you, Jochran Maureen. I'll just move now to questions from journalists in the usual way and today I'll be starting with Owen Clarke from BBC Wales. Prynhawn da, Owen. Prynhawn da, Dr Goodog. Could I start off with mass testing? A short time ago the Welsh Government announced that the first programme in Wales of mass testing will begin in Murthyr Tiddville over the weekend. Could you tell me what in your view the impact of that will be, not least on the NHS, of course? And we know Prince Charles Hospital in Murthyr Tiddville has been particularly hard hit. And what evidence do you have, let's say, from Liverpool about the effectiveness of mass testing programmes in terms of people taking it up? Thank you, Owen. Yes, first of all, you're right to reflect that within the area that the population of Murthyr are supported, Cwmtaff Morganaig runs the hospital system there. That has been of significant concern that the local health system has been under tremendous pressure over recent weeks with seeing significant numbers of patients with coronavirus accommodated within their beds. At one point it's represented around a third of all of the patients in our hospitals in Wales. And really important that we're able to have mechanisms that rather than just simply respond to the virus, we can anticipate and hopefully contain its transmission. We know that we have had encouraging signs over the last week or so about the impact of the firebreak and that we've actually seen some reduction in the number of positive cases reported for populations. And you'll be aware that that also includes Murthyr. But it's really important that we can find other ways of disrupting the chain of transmission that occurs within our communities. We were really clean as we saw the Liverpool pilots taking place that we wanted to ensure that we were able to pursue that and see whether that was going to be possible for us to develop in Wales. Whilst Murthyr was an obvious choice given some of its recent very high prevalence, it's also offering a template oane for how we may want to introduce other local support and interventions across Wales, whatever our national actions are. And I think this represents a really good example of demonstrating that there are things that we can do to see whether we are able to break that chain of transmission. So obviously we are appealing to the population of Murthyr to support us on this initiative and to take that more repeat testing, whether they have symptoms or not. And hopefully that will allow us to make sure that we can demonstrate for this population that there is a way, again, of having some control and containment of the outbreak and the virus. Thank you very much. Now we know the NHS and many of its staff will, as usual, be working very hard right the way through Christmas. But what data or modelling do you have to suggest the amount of pressure that service or the staff might be under when we get to Christmas? And has there been any discussion perhaps in principle about whether or not a firebreak lockdown shortly after Christmas or early in the new year could help mitigate that? Could you tell us a bit more about what you're projecting about that period? Well, in respect of arrangements for other interventions, that will remain a matter for the First Minister and the Cabinet and obviously there has been a commitment expressed about reviewing, based on the data, the impact that the firebreak has had. And as I said earlier, Owen, there are encouraging signs that the firebreak has had some influence on our system. Certainly the reduction in positive cases in our community, whilst it means that there are some areas of Wales at a very high level, that is reinforcing that we know that we can take actions to actually mitigate and contain issues. As I said in my introduction, there are some emerging signs, maybe of some stabilisation in terms of some of the pressures on the hospital side of the system, and that's going to be important for us to work through. And actually, we currently assess that the reproduction rate is between 0.9 and 1.2, but it's quite possible that we may see that reduce further, again as a reflection of the firebreak, as we look at some of the data that will be coming out later on this week as well. So they will reinforce that we know that things can make a difference. There will be an evaluation of the data, we will see whether that will be sufficient to manage through, but ultimately that will revert to the ministerial reflections and considerations, and that commitment has been given in public to work those things through. In respect of your commentary about the NHS and the pressures that we're under, clearly the NHS is under pressure all year round, we plan for the winter period, we've had to do so even more this year because of the COVID-19 context. One of my worries at this stage is that whatever capacity we have available is simply to reinforce the impact that having currently over 1600 patients in our beds represents, and while I would hope that we may see a reduction in hospital patients as a result of the firebreak, whether these increase significantly or not, 1600 patients being cared for is an enormous ask of the NHS in Wales, we would not normally have those beds taken up by patients in this way, we would be seeing and treating other patients, both as emergencies and also as routine. So it's really important to listen to staff about their reflections, I was with the partnership forum last week with staff representatives considering some of these pressures at this stage, but we hope that there will be an impact of the firebreak to limit the growth, but it's quite possible that we will see some further increases even over the next few weeks or so, Owen. I'm often asked at what point the NHS will need to respond differently. There's not a number of such that helps us with that, but obviously we continue to see increases in the hundreds of patients in our hospital system, it would be under immense pressure, whether it's through a Christmas period or not. Owen, Diolch yn fawr iawn, thank you. Moving next to Adrian Masters from ITV Wales. Afternoon, Adrian. Good afternoon, Dr Goodall, thank you very much. I wonder if you could say a bit more about the arrangements for mass testing in Merthyr. How do you intend to roll the tests out? How do you intend to get people to the tests? How much take-up you would expect? And as a result, what your message is to the people of Merthyr about taking part in them? First of all, I would say that this is a measure to support the local population. It's an opportunity to support themselves, but also to allow us to understand how we can support the population of Wales more broadly. We are, of course, learning from other pilots being developed elsewhere, but the Liverpool City Region pilot is certainly the most significant that we've been able to learn from. I've been very grateful to colleagues who have been working on this from the local authority alongside UK Government and Welsh Government, of course, and particularly working with the health board. And I have to say the extensive military support that we've had in respect of the planning for these proposals, that would be familiar with other experiences elsewhere. What we're looking to deploy here is different technology. The First Minister and Minister have talked about that over recent weeks, and with the ability to use lateral flow devices, it does change the nature and the turnaround in respect of what we can do with this more public mass testing approach. One of the key opportunities here is the ability that, as people arrive for a test, we will be able to give those results usually within a 30-minute to an hour period of time, and that would allow a very rapid understanding of what the local prevalence looks like. I think one of the dangers of it, Adrian, and again I would welcome the support of the population of Merthyr to deliver this, is that the testing is only one part of this. That allows a diagnosis and a statement that somebody has the virus. What has to follow is that people then comply with the guidance and rules that apply, so we will be looking for people and they will need to self-isolate in line with the guidance, but in order to make sure that this is reinforced, they will also have access to a second test just to formalise the fact that this is actually an accurate reading with these quicker devices at this stage. But if we're able to start deploying this kind of approach in technology, this starts to really change the nature of the system to be able to rely on a more routine cycle of testing within our communities, and some of these devices will actually be able to be rolled out in other settings as well, possibly into other healthcare settings, for example, again to allow for rapid turnaround of testing as well. Thank you, and a similar question, really, about the rollout of vaccinations across Wales. Can any details on how you're going to store it? I know that the Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored at incredibly low temperatures. I understand you're talking about using the Welsh blood service facilities, if you could say a bit more about that. How you're recruiting people and what sort of people? Is it GPs or is it pharmacists or somebody else altogether? And where the vaccination would take place? So logistics questions, really, about the rollout of vaccination. Well, it's right to focus on the logistics of this whole exercise. I mean, this is the most significant logistics exercise that we'll have undertaken under any vaccination programme. From a positive perspective, having said that, the NHS, of course, is used to delivering an annual cycle of vaccines, discharging those appropriately from childhood vaccines right through to annual flu cycles as well. So we do have an understanding of the way in which we can discharge that, and that does mean that we have an infrastructure in place across the NHS to be in a position to deliver that. But this will be an enhanced ask of our workforce on top of existing very busy day-to-day activities, and it's important that wherever possible we can actually recruit and enhance our workforce as well. So every health board area across Wales is working on proposals that will allow to support whatever version of vaccines come through the regulatory process, because at the moment none of those have been technically signed off, despite the very encouraging results that we have. Depending on the vaccination itself, you are right that one of the vaccinations being made available does have particular storage issues. Again, we can rely on the fact that we have the Welsh Blood Service to provide some of the specialist support for that as necessary. But it will make some of the logistics for one of them more difficult, because we won't perhaps be able to use it in the same traditional way that we've done with other vaccination programmes. But some of the other vaccines that are emerging now are much more able to be delivered in a traditional primary and community care environment. So rather than simply just disrupt all of our normal activities, we are looking to do it on an enhanced basis. And of course, our particular focus for Wales will be how can we make sure that as many vaccinations are provided to as many individuals as possible, but we also need to make sure that logistically, we ensure that there is a very low wastage rate as well. So again, the opportunity to protect our population, particularly the most vulnerable, allows this to feel that this would really change the nature of our response in Wales. But it will also take us perhaps longer than people want and expect. I think the vaccination programme will be still continuing well into the spring. And therefore, it's really important that we do start with those who are most vulnerable in our society and make sure that they are protected first, Adrian. Thank you. OK, thank you very much. Dan Bevan is next from LBC. Good afternoon, Dan. Good afternoon, Dr Goodall. Thank you very much. If I could go back to the mother mass testing, if that's OK. Time frame is something that we haven't heard about yet. I understand you might not want to put an arbitrary date on the end of this programme. But if you haven't got an end date in mind, could you give us a flavour of whether it's going to be weeks, months or well into next year? For the mass testing programme in Merthyr, we would be looking to start for the first set of members of the community this Saturday. So there will be arrangements that will be in place to at least start off those mechanisms. And that will allow us to grow the individual sites that are in use. I think, Dan, it's going to be really important that we have some flexibility around our approaches so that what we are able to do is to use some of the mobile units in particular and make sure that, as well as having dedicated sites available, to move around to some of the communities, particularly where we think that prevalence is higher. Of course, we'll need to consider about how we move into some of our settings. So one of the areas for consideration will be around how we would approach areas such as education or even workplace settings as well. But we're hoping that the local population will feel supported to want to make sure that they're able to go through this mass testing approach. So those numbers will increase. We will need to think about the success of that and evaluate it. And it may well be that if we have other areas of Wales that still have a high prevalence, that there may be some opportunity to revisit that. But that will be part of ongoing advice that happens for ministers. There will always be some issues of dates, whatever we're doing. So whether these are dates for a mass testing programme or whether they are dates for vaccination programmes, we'll just have to try to keep the people of Wales as updated as we can be, because often these things are happening under quite urgent timescales. And it's important that we're able to be agile, I think, as we learn from the experiences as well. Thank you. I take from that that there isn't an end date in mind for the mass testing programme in Merthyr, which is fair enough. And also that you've mentioned that you've been learning from the Liverpool rollout there as well. What in particular has a picture interest from that? And are we going to be doing it exactly the same as in Merthyr? Or, excuse me, as in Liverpool in Merthyr, or is it going to be different in any way? Well, I think there will inevitably be a difference in respect of the size of the county of Merthyr in contrast to Liverpool as an area. I think that's why this is a useful pilot for us to undertake in Wales, because we can be much more targeted for our population in Merthyr at this stage. We've been able to learn about some issues in respect of the reliability of the testing that comes through. So the use of the lateral flow devices in Liverpool has been really important. And the feedback, of course, is that rather than waiting 24 hours for a test, or up to 48 hours, an ability to actually start the contact tracing process literally within the first hour is a really important mechanism that's here as well. I think the really positive feedback from Liverpool as an area as they continue to go through the cycle of this testing is again an example of how population comes alongside an intervention like this in order to do the right thing. And what Liverpool demonstrates is that many people, a very significant number, are very willing to take up the testing approach, even if this disrupts their life and their activities as well. So it's going to be important to learn from that. The final comment I would make is to just have some understanding of some of the sort of social knock-on effects, particularly where there will be perhaps higher numbers of people self-isolating. And that's one of the reasons why Welsh Government has introduced some support generally to recognise that there will be implications for employment when people have to self-isolate. But my main message would be if people end up with a positive result through this process and they will have another test to confirm that, they must comply with the actions that we have in place, including their need to self-isolate because by doing so they will not expose or be a risk to other patients or other members of their communities. Dan, thank you very much. Moving next to Abby Whitwick from Wales Online. Good afternoon, Abby. Good afternoon, Dr Goodall. I just want to move on to Christmas, if I may. Lots of people are trying to make plans for Christmas. What kind of restrictions at Christmas would most help the NHS run as smoothly as possible? So my main message for Christmas, irrespective of the political review that will be undertaken by Cabinet after the firebreak, and of course there is engagement across the UK about arrangements that may work, is to focus on the need to still limit social interaction and comply with the guidance about social distancing to make sure that hand hygiene is undertaken. Because whilst these are very familiar messages to people, the reason that we speak about them, Abby, is because they are the things that make the difference most and if there is any flexibility that is provided within the system we would still want to ensure that people undertake that with safety in mind because we still need to make sure that the virus is contained at this stage. The NHS, as I've said, is already under enormous pressure. 654 patients who we have in hospital beds for COVID-related reasons at the moment is the highest number that we've had even since the April peak and whilst it's slowing down, it is very disruptive about the nature of the care that we can provide and that's why I know that NHS staff have been very happy to see the way in which the Welsh population has responded right over these recent months to help us by complying and also helping us by supporting with their own behaviour as well. But you'll have heard ministers speak very often about the focus often being on about what people can do, whereas what people just need to pause and reflect on is whether they should do that or not. So if they do need to meet with other people to do so on a limited basis and not, if I can put it this way, to use the regulations to the maximum, really important that they use that flexibility in an appropriate manner. So obviously some people have said publicly that they will break those rules if there are rules at Christmas. So what would the effect on the NHS have of people having almost a Christmas as usual, inviting their friends and family over? What would the effect of a normal Christmas be on the NHS? So one of the worries that we'll have on the NHS side would be seeing the impact of understandable social interaction between people, having an impact on the reproduction rate and leading to an increase in the virus and its development. One of the worries is that our actual experience of the NHS, not modelling experience, is that where there are higher numbers of positive cases in the community, it translates into higher hospital admissions, it translates into higher numbers of patients in our critical care units, and that unfortunately and sadly will lead to more deaths. In my introduction, Abbie, I spoke about the fact that we have had over 530 deaths reported by Public Health Wales just over the last four weeks. As a reminder to all of us, in the first two weeks of September Public Health Wales didn't report any deaths on a daily basis, and that has changed very, very quickly. The more patients there are in hospital beds across Wales, the more deaths that there will be occurring in terms of our community, and that's why we need to take these protective measures. But the decisions on what may happen around the Christmas period and what may need to happen after the review of the post-fire break will be with the First Minister and the Cabinet to review that and to see whether they feel there is a need for further interventions. Some interventions that can happen, though, are about what can be done locally within individual areas, and that's why I've been really pleased to see the Merthyr mass-testing approach be put in place, because I think that does represent something that will be very different in terms of the approach and the experience in Wales. Abbie, thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr. Moving next to Steve Bagnall from The Daily Post. Good afternoon, Steve. Good afternoon, Dr Goodall. Thank you. There was a recent outbreak of 20 cases at the Wrexham Mylar Hospital. Is there any update on the current situation there, please? Steve, I don't have the figures to hand. I'm afraid for Wrexham Mylar. Inevitably, as we see higher levels within our community, we will see higher numbers of patients going into our hospitals. What I would say in our experience this time on the second wave, that it does feel that North Wales has had less impact to date from the virus, and there has been therefore less patients unfortunately within North Wales in both our general hospital beds but also in critical care. There's a danger of that representing that the NHS isn't busy at all, but it's more about the knock-on effects for these patients at the moment. But certainly the pressures have been probably more on the second phase around the south Wales area and moving more along the M4 corridor. We are keeping a close eye though on North Wales, Steve, mainly because of recognising the inevitable links to the higher numbers up there at this stage. But what's pleasing about the preparation in North Wales is I think that they have demonstrated over recent months a range of actions that have been very effective about caring for patients. You may well have noticed that they have decided to open earlier the field hospital arrangements in D-side basically just to give some additional flexibility partly because of some of the emerging pressures that they are seeing for coronavirus. I think that's a very good step that's been taken by the health board and by many patients coming into the system as well. Thank you. Cases do appear to be coming down in North Wales and other areas following the firebreak. But given the picture you've just painted about increasing pressures on the NHS, how confident are you the new national regime of rules is enough to turn the tide in terms of admissions to hospitals across the region on the rest of Wales? We will need to allow the appropriate period of time to carry on for us to understand the full impact of these rules and I know the first minister and the minister have always been very clear that from a hospital perspective it was very unlikely that we would see the full impact probably for a two to three week period afterwards. The positive response so far about seeing at least positive cases in the community reduce, one would expect that that will translate into fewer patients within our hospitals at this stage. I'm afraid as of today I can't report that but I can report that I have certainly seen the growth of cases in hospitals slow a lot over the last week and over recent days and the number of admissions coming into our system has noticeably reduced just over the last few days as well and if that carried on then I would be much more confident about the fact that whilst there will still be a very significant number of patients in our hospitals that actually there would be better support for the NHS with at least some of the more recent pressures when we describe how many patients are in our hospital beds at the moment is actually the number of patients who are there defined as recovering patients and there are over 400 patients now defined as recovering from COVID related patients and if we could see that number reduce it would mean that people would have been able to be discharged safely back to their home environment. I'll be keeping a very close eye on it. You also asked about critical care so critical care numbers in overall terms for COVID related patients have been probably able over the last couple of weeks. I think some of that is about the nature of the treatments that can be applied now to patients which is a good development that we've seen over recent months but I'm still worried that if we see high positive cases within the community ultimately that will mean a higher number of patients in our critical care beds in the future. Steve, thank you very much Joch, moving next to Yolo Jones from Prindhadar Yolo I'm Da Doctor Goodall. I'll be asking my questions in both English and Welsh. Hid yma mwy chwydraeth San Steffan wedi talw'r cyntaf i'r ddebyg gyda chi o wneith i'r wyr brachlen ac wedi sicrhau'n 30, 50 milion ddaws a dros wrth nesaf y dweud yna'n ddweud yn dda i brifrechlyn gyda chi'n nhw'n fwy'r ffeithio'n archaill.  System Hymorth, yn rhywbeth a'r Ysgrifennu'n Siadol yn ffordd farddol, ac mae'r Ysgrifennu Ysgrifennu yma yn ystod o'r llyfrnod. So ymrapod, dystiad yn credu angharthu ar y vaxen. Mae hyn yn ymddangosiodiol iawn oherwydd iawn o'r gennym. ysgrifennu Ysgrifennu kinadol yn yr Ysgrifennu ymெryd o'r rai hwnnw, a that means that for our population on any of these vaccines that we will always have our appropriate share. There have been some advantages of being able to work through some of the underlying criteria. At least the nature of the patients who will be subject to the vaccination. There are UK wide committee arrangements that give that kind of support and advice to us in Wales as well as the other UK countries. We have very clear konwch mewn prifsgrif aer i gael yma yn y blaenau cyflodau. Mae'n rheisio i gael chefnodau sy'n eu Helffbords yw'r llyffaeth yma, ac yn mynd i weld tynod i gael gennymu'r rhai usiadau a'u gael hunain. Yna ni'n gwneud i'r blaenau o'r bledigol Cymru a'r prydau ei wneud yn erbyn i'n mynd i ddweud, on i'n cael eu gofynu am wneud gweld yr maith, ond yn y dysgu'i dyfu, rydyn ni'n gofynu yma fel ffadwer o'r hynny, Mae dwylo'r cychwyn i'w gweithio gweithio'r vaccine sy'n ei ffordd o gyflogio'r sidef۔ Mae'r cyflogio'n braeddon i'r sefydledig o bobl y ddwyll chi arwag y bach sydd oeddio'r vaccine sy'n yn wirgylehnewch.  Ond yn fawr, nhw'n hwnnw fel hynny, yn edrych yn gweithio'r problemau yw'r cyntaf ar maes wgledig? Fe wnes i'n sefydlu sy'n tu oedd mynd i adroddedigio. Felly, digwydd, yn byw'r bobl y mor fflingid gweithio, mae ei wneud yw'r cyfrif Coordin ond am gywledigio cael ei bod yn ddigonw gwlad y cyfrifredig sy'n trwy lawer sydd wedi'u gweithio mewn cyfrifredigion ei fabrydau cymreith. Mae wedi cyfrifredigio'r cyfrifredigias yw'r cyfrifredigias hefyd heb mwyn i mi wneud awyr. Wedyn gydigwyd invitedbyn nhw'n ddiwrnod mewn diwrnod i'r am y gwrs i ddigon ynwyd, ei bobl i'r cyfriddio'r gwrs gyda llwyts yng Nghymru, ond mae'n mynd i'w ddaeth yr oeddiweddol yn adroddau'r cyfriddio. Yn oeddiwch i gyd o'r cyfriddio, mae'r rhaid o'ch gwrs yn ochon jei'r cysylltu allan sy'n gweithio'r cwestiadau oherwydd mae'n effeithio'r cysylltu arall i'r agglwysigau ei gael amgylcheddau ar y Pwg Fy sicrwp Rydym. Great. As to my second question, yn siarad y golwg yn dwyedd ar nath Helene Hucklott, sy'n comisiwn idd pobl hwn, rhan i frydder o'n hi am effaith o'r gyfwng ar pobl hwn, mae dydyn ni sylw'r problemau yn gysigdiadau gyda DNA-CPA. Dwi'n dod i bod pobl hwn wedi tymlau pwysig o'r tyno i DNA-CPA a dachryr o'r gyfwng, a bod hynny wedi gwneud dyn nhw'n deimlo bod wedi bwydden nhw'n chai gwerthfawr. Ydych chi'n ymwybod o'r wrthroblemau ac anewch chi gymryd gyflyma i galunogi pobl hi yn cymry. Speaking to Golwg recently, Helene Hucklott, the older people's commissioner, shared her concerns about the effect of the crisis on older people. She specifically mentioned issues surrounding DNA-CPA instructions to not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation. She said that early on in the crisis older people felt pressured to agree to the DNA-CPA, but this made them feel that their lives were less valuable. Are you aware of such issues and would you take this chance to assure older people that they are not expendable in this crisis? Well, I would hope, Yolo, that the fact that we've had to focus so much on older people because they are the most affected from an age perspective by this virus, it actually targets age, unfortunately, and it's why we absolutely need to make sure that support is wrapped around here. Clearly, there are clinical guidelines in place for our normal NHS services in terms of choices as well, but particularly through the pandemic we wanted to make sure that any arrangements are very clear. There were a couple of occasions early on where there was some unfortunate communication that happened at a more local level and I was able to respond to that even in earlier press conferences this year because they did not represent national policy for us in Wales and I would absolutely give assurances of whilst there is a normal aspect to what happens in the normal NHS that we have got very clear guidelines in place about what is appropriate for support. Really important that we recognise the need to support older people in their day-to-day lives at home, that we need to support older people who are in care homes and also of course to recognise that we have older people who are receiving care within our hospitals as well. What I'm constantly trying to do with the NHS in Wales is to find the balance to make sure that people don't inappropriately stay too long in a hospital environment where we are likely to see higher levels of prevalence of the virus inevitably because they are emitting emergency patients and what I want to see is that we are able to support older people to be in an appropriate setting as quickly as possible but with the confidence that where needed they will have the negative test results, for example, that are required to make sure that care can be delivered. I still see it as an overall system, it's about the care system working alongside the NHS but I think we also need to recognise the level of support that is needed for older people at home as well. Joch yn fawr iawn, Yolo, moving next to Gabriella Page from Atrium News. Good afternoon, Gabriella. Good afternoon. Thank you, Dr Goodall. We know it's been announced that students studying in Wales could be required to undergo a test before travelling home for Christmas with some universities booking these tests already but others still haven't heard anything yet. How will this testing of students work and how many students are you expecting to test? Thank you, Gabriella. I know the Education Minister was able herself to describe some of the arrangements that have been agreed across the UK to make sure that students can appropriately return to their home settings and I think the good news over these recent weeks is actually some of the changes of the technology that is available for testing has allowed us to think about those things in a very different way from where we were back in March and April. So there are arrangements, of course, that have been described over the border in England but equally there are mechanisms that have been put in place in Wales for the way in which we will have that access. So we have got examples within our university settings, for example in Cardiff where testing arrangements using some of the specialist expertise within Cardiff University itself has been possible and that has provided a level of infrastructure that can be put in place but our hope is that through a combination of some of the community testing approaches as well as the emergence of these new technologies that we may be able to deploy some of these much more quickly and usefully in Wales consistent with the experience elsewhere. I think you're probably aware that some of these are being piloted at the moment across the UK and that's to make sure that all of the university sector can learn from that together but we absolutely want the experience for our students in Wales both those returning to Wales and those leaving to return to their homes elsewhere should be as consistent as possible across the UK and I know that was the intention of the education minister. Thank you. So my second question as well was part of the plan outlined for the students also that they're being asked to minimise social contacts before the end of term but what to be advised for the students from outside of Wales or the university area who have chosen not to move this term and are still commuting how will testing work for these students and will there be a separate plan and guidance for them? I think a lot of what we're trying to work through is wherever we have guidance available what we hope can happen also is that people can use their own understanding and common sense to be able to apply the rules as applied to them. I mean you're absolutely right to recognise that not every student is living on a campus arrangement or away from home and clearly they would need to reflect arrangements that more in line with their experiences. I think the most important message for students at this stage particularly as we get closer to the dates where people want to return to their home environments is to recognise that they will need to reduce their social contacts with others because what we don't want to happen is that students will go back to their home areas and possibly be transmitting the virus to their loved ones and their family so the intention isn't to prevent students from enjoying university life in an unusual way it is absolutely to make sure that what we're doing is protecting those that they love the most and I'd really hope that what we can do is by being practical about some of the arrangements whether that is formal quarantering or just reducing the amount of contacts that people have in that sort of seven to fourteen days beforehand all of these are measures that we know will make a difference to the transmission of the virus. Okay, thank you very much Gabriella. That's the end of today's session. Thank you very much for all of the questions and thank you very much for listening. Diolch yn rhan fydd.