The consensus among many in Wales seems to be that Mark Drakeford and the Welsh Government have handled the pandemic well; that their careful approach contrasts well with this across the border.

Labour's return to office in May's Senedd elections, despite early predictions the party faced its worst result in the short history of devolution, does nothing to dent this impression.

Yet, around we may all wish to move ahead and just hope that nothing beats this ever happens again, there are serious questions Wales as a nation needs to address as to resolve the intense issues that the pandemic has exposed.

A large numbers of individuals have left here with Covid – depending the way you count it, some estimates suggest we've had more deaths in accordance with our size than any other part of the UK. Many died in hospitals or care homes. Was all this really inevitable?

Many of these criticisms should rightly land at the door from the UK government. Its actions sometimes have clearly seemed to hinder ale Wales' leaders to reply in the way they would have wanted to here. Travel rules, Covid testing and no communication all need serious scrutiny. However it isn't to just dump all of this in the door of Westminster. The Welsh Government has serious questions to answer.

Looking carefully only at that brings us to deeper questions about what we should want from Wales' government and how we equip it to complete those activities. We will be publishing a similar article to this about the UK Government in 2 weeks. But it's right that we look at Wales first – and right the Welsh Government faces difficult questions if it is to fulfil such an natural part in our lives.

Mark Drakeford has resisted requires a Welsh inquiry into Covid but as this information will demonstrated there were decisions taken here in Wales that led to deaths within Wales. They deserve to be properly scrutinised – not a footnote inside a UK Government inquiry. Anything less that the full Wales inquiry is not just an affront towards the memory of those who died unnecessarily because of decisions the Welsh Government made, additionally, it constitutes a mockery from the idea that devolved government is really a legitimate and accountable representation of those of Wales.

The 29 point below chronicles the very serious questions about the Welsh Government's handling of pandemic, and why a Wales specific inquiry, to date refused by Mark Drakeford, is absolutely necessary.

The second wave

When the Welsh Government were fully in control, Wales were built with a higher death toll than England

There is a strong narrative that has developed the Welsh Government, though caution and care, protected Wales in the worst from the pandemic. This is often when compared to UK Government's handling in England. Without underplaying the intense errors produced by the UK Government (this is addressed in a separate article), the information simply doesn't bear in the concept that the Welsh Government handled this pandemic well.

A easy way assess the Welsh Government's performance is to look at the second wave from the pandemic. Unlike the first wave, where there was significant ambiguity early on over whether it was the united kingdom or Welsh Government who were making the big calls, the 2nd wave was different.

Between August 2021 and March 2021, all of the big decisions on lockdown management were made by the Welsh Government.

This implies that the success and failings of that period land squarely in the feet of Mark Drakeford, Vaughan Gething and co.

And the figures are really woeful.

The death rate in accordance with population (100k people) for Wales in the first wave was 79, slightly higher than Scotland on 77 but far lower than England's 87.

In the second wave, Wales' death rate was devastating 169 when compared to England's 144 and, far greater than Scotland's 108.

The two charts tell the storyline. The one in blue illustrates the quantity of deaths relative to population in the first wave and also the one in green shows the second wave. As you can tell, the wave in which the Welsh Government were making the big calls there were more deaths in Wales than anywhere.

No to become fair Wales comes with an older population than England and therefore it's more vulnerable to Covid. This could skew the information perhaps? Well when we make use of the internationally-recognised system for adjusting for age, what's called an age standardised measure, the Welsh Government's handling from the second wave still reflects poorly. Once that calculation is created Wales' death rates are still 145 deaths per 100k people when compared with England's 136.

But even when we put aside comparisons with England and check out Wales in isolation, there are still real good reasons to question how the pandemic was handled by the Welsh Government. Over 5,000 people died in Wales of the virus on their own watch in the second wave. You can't point at Boris Johnson or Matt Hancock for these deaths. The decisions that resulted in them were overwhelmingly produced in Cardiff Bay and never Westminster.

Unable to get a grip on the virus up to Christmas

On December 10, Wales' weekly infection rate had risen to 480 cases per 100,000 people – double what it really was before we entered the firebreak. Maybe even more concerning it was almost 800% higher it had been on September 21 when, at 54.6 cases per 100k individuals the final week, SAGE said that urgent action was required to prevent “a large epidemic with catastrophic consequences”.

To combat this rise the Welsh Government didn't lockdown instead simply said that from December 4 all cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants will need to close their doors at 6pm and said Cinemas, bowling alleys along with other indoor entertainment venues would have to close completely.

The First Minister has established that the reason for it was because they had promised the folks of Wales the fire break would see them through till Christmas. The truth is everything this delay did was increase the infection causing much more deaths than was inevitable. This mistake and these deaths are solely around the Welsh Government. On top of this they didn't even make into Christmas anyway needing to lockdown day before.

Ignored advice to go into lockdown in autumn

Though quicker than other parts of the UK, the Welsh Government was way too slow to enter a lockdown throughout the second wave. And it came after a period where the cabinet's messages on whether Sage's advice applied to Wales was deeply confusing.

Wales went into the firebreak on October 23. It was over a month following the UK's top scientific advisory body the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) published advice on September 21 where they called for a circuit breaker lockdown.

This advice stated that “cases are increasing across the nation in all age groups”.

It added: “Not acting how to reduce cases can lead to a really large epidemic with catastrophic consequences when it comes to direct Covid related deaths and also the ability of the health plan to meet needs.

“As within the first wave, the burden of a large second wave would fall disproportionately around the frailest in today's world, but also those on lower incomes and BAME communities.”

The advice suggested a bundle of measures including:

• A circuit-breaker to return incidence to low levels.

• Banning all contact within the home with people in other households

• Closure of bars, restaurants, cafes, indoor gyms, and private services (e.g. hairdressers)

• All university and college teaching to become online unless essential.

It concluded: “The more rapidly these interventions are put in place the greater the reduction in Covid related deaths and also the quicker they may be eased. However, some restrictions is going to be essential for a considerable time.

“Infections are actually increasing in every of the four nations from the UK. Transmission is evolving from localised hotspots to some more generalised epidemic.”

Continuing having a policy that didn't work

As the virus really got going again in Wales in September 2021 the Welsh Government insisted on what it called local lockdowns to contain the virus.

Yet its local lockdowns weren't really lockdowns. Pubs remained open, even though they needed to shut at 10. Gyms remained open. Non-essential retail remained open. Schools were open.All they did was stop people going to other parts of Wales – however the virus didn't seem to notice. It spread anyway.

No area that entered a nearby lockdown ever arrived on the scene again and quickly more local authorities in Wales were in one. Even Wales' CMO Frank Atherton said they weren't effective saying that using them "wasn't very encouraging.”

Scientific experts were already with a complete circuit break lockdown. It was the Welsh Government's decision to disregard this and theirs alone.

The firebreak too short

As well as coming past too far, the firebreak lockdown was way too short. The very first Minister has admitted it himself since.

The fire break did slow the virus. For two weeks, Wales' infection rate fell. There was a consequent fall in hospitalisations and deaths. And yet by November 29, a month following the firebreak began, Wales was back above the degree of cases it had been if this entered the firebreak.

If Wales wasn't safe at 231 cases per 100,000 on October 23 when the firebreak began, why was it safe at 236 cases and rising per 100,000 on November 29 when there have been far more lax restrictions and cold temperature?

The restrictions after the fire break were far, far too relaxed

How Wales emerged from the fire break designed a resurgence in the virus inevitable.

The restrictions were unbelievably lenient. Pubs were open, gyms were open, schools were open, all shops were open, cinemas, bowling alleys etc… all open

All of this at a time when there have been no vaccines, the situation rate per 100,000 was 207 and positivity rates were 14%.

Over reliance on the failing UK Government Lighthouse Labs.

Again this point needs to be caveated by the fact that the UK Government chose to make this issue harder to deal with it needed to be.

At the start of the pandemic the UK Government and Deloitte set up a testing centre in the Cardiff City Stadium without communication with the Welsh Government and Public Health Wales. This led to the Welsh Governments taking the decision to have a duel testing regime in Wales. Some tests went through Welsh Government labs whereas others went through the united kingdom Government funded (but privately run) Lighthouse Labs.

This overreliance on the UK Government tests resulted in serious issues as Wales went into the 2nd wave from the pandemic. As the virus began to remove in September 2021 everyone was simply not capable of getting the tests the needed since the UK Government system was totally overwhelmed.

A man from Cardiff who needed a coronavirus test was offered a slot in Inverness, Scotland in 5 days time. Incidents such as this meant that when contact tracers made contact with with close contacts the time of self isolation had been over. Though this can be a UK Government trouble in the main, the Welsh Government had a whole summer to ramp up ale the Welsh labs to check and end the reliance on the Lighthouse Labs.

The myth the Kent variant caused the Christmas lockdown in Wales

As Wales entered lockdown over Christmas several Welsh Government politicians suggested that it was right down to the emergence from the new, more easily spread Kent variant.

The new variant had driven a rapid increase in England however to suggest that it was this variant that caused the winter lockdown in Wales would be to ignore the realities on the ground.

Cases had been rising relentlessly in Wales because the oncoming of September. The local lockdowns slowed but didn't stop it. Track, Trace, Protect couldn't get on top of it. The fire-break put a dent in the development for a fortnight though lots of bad feeling was caused by the PR mess which was the ban on supermarkets selling non-essential items. Then, when we emerged in the fire-break, it was into a set of much more lenient rules which allowed four people to meet in hospitality settings.

It was many of these decisions and actions that led to us neglecting to get a grip on the problem – not the new variant. Even close to Christmas, once the full threat resulting from the new variant became apparent and we went into a lockdown before Christmas, there is no evidence it's the dominant strain in Wales.

It was mishandling from the virus that caused the second wave. Not a new varient.

The first wave: March – July 2021

Lack of preparation

There isn't any making your way around the truth that Wales was woefully prepared for a pandemic. The lack of PPE stockpiles, the sluggish response, our prime death toll when compared with other countries, not being able to safeguard care homes and the pitiful critical care capacity all bear this up.

Now there are strong arguments that a few of the blame for this lack of preparedness lands in the feet of Boris Johnson and also the UK Government.

However to pretend that the Welsh Government could not have done more to prepare the Welsh NHS would be to ignore its responsibilities. It are responsible for health in Wales. It had part in Exercise Cygnus (the 2021 study that found the UK was not remotely ready for any large pandemic). The cabinet had read the warnings from experts that the emerging disease was, alongside climate change, one of the greatest potential threats we can face. They had seen what diseases like SARS had done in well developed countries. They had seen this virus overwhelm hospitals in Wuhan. It watched it overwhelm Italy.

They also acknowledged their role in protecting Wales. Vaughan Gething was challenged at length about the threat resulting from coronavirus is the Senedd as soon as January 29, 2021.

Caroline Jones said “the threat we face out of this new strain of coronavirus is of grave concern” and MS Angela Burns asked "does Wales have emergency treatment centre planning in place, in case we get to some situation where this may develop further?” Speaking then Mr Gething stressed that the Welsh Government wasn't being complacent but he “certainly don't want to add to the impression that the higher health risks obtained care of than is likely.”

Hindsight may be a powerful thing but serious questions should be asked of Wales' leaders just like they are from the UK's leaders about whether they should have taken evidence from Wuhan and Italy more seriously and made sure Wales was better prepared if the pandemic reach our shores.

There has been huge criticism of Boris Johnson because of not attending Cobra meetings early on the pandemic and respond strongly and quickly enough yet Wales' leaders have seemed to escape this. Why was work not done earlier to build up PPE stocks or prepare the NHS for that pandemic?

Why was contact tracing not adopted sooner?

This point leads on from the previous one and again, some of the blame here falls at the feet of the UK Government. However there is no denying the Welsh Government, who're accountable for health in Wales, allowed herpes to advance too much before action was taken.

The Welsh Government appeared to be led through the UK Government at this point who have been following a pattern of letting the herpes spread in communities before locking down. Referred to as "delay phase", the virus was permitted to circulate. This was driven by both the initial push for herd immunity (abandoned when it became clear it would lead to thousands and thousands more dead) and feeling the virus spreading to everybody was ultimately inevitable (a theory disproved through the countries who went to have an elimination strategy).

This delay also coincided through the Governments in the UK abandoning contact tracing rather than building up capacity. This left epidemiologists blind to that which was driving infections and Wales will not have a passable contract tracing system until four months later.

The huge, huge sums spent on field hospitals which were barely used and can have been obtained more cheaply

As Wales has this kind of appallingly low critical care capacity the Welsh Government had to scramble to prepare extra capacity at an enormous cost to the tax payer.

Money it seemed wasn't any object, with lb166m spent just on initial costs to build a total of 19 field hospitals in Wales, some of which were not used at all. This doesn't include the running costs. Some Welsh field hospital beds cost lb166,667 per patient just in rent at the height of the pandemic.

Now it could be argued their hospitals lack of use is is a good thing, that to complain relating to this may be the same as complaining about investing in lifeboats whenever a ship arrives safety in port.

However this is a monstrous amount of public money and heavy questions should be asked because there were huge differences between your financial arrangements struck around Wales. While Hywel Dda health board paid lb5 million to Bluestone Holiday Resorts for his or her hospital, Swansea Bay health board were able to arrange use of the Bay Studios site on a "peppercorn basis" or at no cost.

In the Vale of Glamorgan, the health board paid approximately lb100k to make use of the Welsh Rugby facility at the Vale Resort during Bangor, it cost only a tenth of the to consider over the university building.

In Cardiff, at most high profile from the field hospitals, the health board said its capital building costs were lb2.37m but the revenue costs of running what it really called the Dragon's Heart Hospital were forecast to hit lb55.73m at the point it replied to the Freedom of Information Act request.

Just concentrating on the Dragon's Heart Hospital in Cardiff the questions an inquiry must answer include:

• Why was so much cash spent on a medical facility inside a rugby stadium when every leisure centre in the city was empty at that time?

• Why locate the hospital with what is quite a logistically challenging location?
• Were there enough staff to run it?

Failing to supply healthcare staff using the right PPE

Though since last summer the problems around PPE have largely gone away but there is no denying that, in the early months of the pandemic, the Welsh Government's failure to supply PPE left front line staff in Wales undefended against a virus that was killing people.

This story tells of doctors needing to buy goggles from the DIY shop. There was the heartbreaking story of Gareth Roberts who had been a nurse from Aberdare who died from Covid after being delivered to look after Covid patients with “a paper mask, plastic gloves along with a pinny”. In Newport the council pleaded with local businesses to provide PPE for his or her frontline workers.

A survey by the British Medical Association in May this past year found that 67% of doctors in Wales didn't feel fully protected from Covid-19 within their place of work.

It also found that 27% of doctors had reported shortages of gowns with long sleeves in settings where they're most in danger, caring for the sickest Covid-19 patients. Some 17% of doctors either failed or had not been fit tested for any FFP3 mask. This can be a type of mask used when performing highly infectious medical procedures and which otherwise properly fitted means a healthcare worker remains at significant risk of becoming infected.

Even worse is the fact that 33% of doctors told the BMA they would not bother to talk up a good issue for example PPE or staffing shortages because they didn't think anything could be done about it.

While we clapped our brave frontline workers these were going into a battle without body armor.

The false declare that Wales never ran from PPE

As you can see from the above point, Wales clearly didn't have sufficient PPE where it was needed. However Vaughan Gething has subsequently claimed several times in press conferences that "Wales never ran out of PPE". Wales might have technically had PPE for the most critical intensive care wards of major hospitals, but everyone who needed it could not have it – and that makes his statement deeply hollow.

To claim Wales "never ran out of PPE" it's an insult to any or all the people who contracted the virus because they did not have proper protection and deserves the undivided attention of an inquiry.

The large amount of public investment property on Government contracts

As the Welsh Government failed to properly stockpile PPE in front of the pandemic they ended up spending hugely exorbitant prices for PPE when the pandemic got going.

Obviously during times of popular price goes up. However when this occurs it's the duty of the Welsh Government to make certain that the tax payer is paying a fair price for good, particularly when they are facing these hikes due to their own insufficient preparation.

Contracts were flying out left right and centre. Cardiff-based company, called Genmed Enterprises Ltd, helped source china supplies for Wales. It was awarded two contracts through the NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership in April totalling a lot more than lb15m.

Genmed, whose hq is really a red-brick industrial unit in Bessemer Close, Grangetown, Cardiff, close to one of the city's household waste recycling centres, supplied gowns as part of a contract worth lb7,500,000.

Genmed seemed to be paid a lot more than lb6.6m to provide masks.

As the pandemic continued NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership awarded a further six contracts for the supply of PPE, totalling nearly lb70 million, seemingly without any advertising or competitive tendering process. All contracts awarded by the Welsh government, the following, were done with no competitive tendering process, citing reasons "due to the Covid-19 global pandemic" based on the Wales Audit Office.

An inquiry into the Welsh Governments handling of the pandemic needs to investigate:

• Why was no stockpiling done?
• Why was there no transparent tendering process?
• Was value for money achieved?
• How a number of these products were used before they ran out of date?

The further false declare that the Welsh NHS never was overwhelmed

This was another favourite of Vaughan Gething as he was health minister – the face the NHS was never overwhelmed.

As one senior NHS worker told WalesOnline: “Of course the NHS was overwhelmed by coronavirus – we are overwhelmed every winter."

In March Mr Gething needed to cancel every single non-essential procedure in the health service because of the huge wave of coronavirus cases decreasing the street. Be aware that “non-essential” consists of cancer procedures as well as hip replacements. These had barely got going again once they were again cancelled for that bigger wave in the winter months. This means you will find people all over Wales in serious pain and also have been for at least 12 months – all since the NHS can't treat them at the moment. To point out to those people who the NHS is not overwhelmed is beggers belief.

At the very least you realized a functioning health plan to have the ability to treat people who are in serious pain. But they can't because there has been a lot coronavirus. The act of cancelling these procedures is a illustration showing an overwhelmed health service.

A criminally-low critical care capacity

One from the key reasons for the Welsh NHS being so susceptible to Covid is our low ICU capacity.

It only took a small number of Covid cases to place really serious pressure on ICU and therefore lockdowns were needed. At the beginning of the pandemic Wales' 153 intensive care bed capacity was 153. This is 4.9 for every 100,000 of our population.

In the united kingdom as whole you will find 6.6 ICU beds for every 100,000 of our population. Germany has 29.2, USA 29.4, Austria 21.8, Belgium 15.9. Even Italy, a rustic whose health service was overwhelmed has almost twice the UK capacity at 12.5.

This low capacity made it we have them the influx of Covid patients. This shortcoming happened on the Welsh Government's watch.

Falsely claiming these were giving extra cash to support victims of domestic violence in early months from the pandemic

The pandemic would be a terrible here we are at those suffering domestic violence. Many survivors found themselves locked inside with their abusers, cut off from their support networks and not able to access services.

Those services themselves were also struggling to deal with the need for social distancing in refuges and homeworking.

To combat this the Welsh Government announced lb1.2m to fund community accommodation as well as another lb200,000 for furnishings.

However Welsh Women's Aid has stated that these funds were already allocated with the lb1.2 million was originally announced in December 2021 and the lb200,000 as being a 2021/20 capital underspend which had already been promised last quarter.

In a damning letter to deputy minister and chief whip, Jane Hutt, Welsh Women's Aid CEO Sara Kirkpatrick accused the Welsh Government of "giving false aspire to survivors".

The situation has now improved with services reporting receiving additional support but how was this permitted to happen?

Long delays getting shielding people priority delivery slots

Early in around the pandemic, all the people who had been told to defend had a serious issue.

They have been told to remain at home and not go out however they were not able to to reserve delivery slots form supermarkets since there was so much demand. A scheme to offer priority slots to shielding people in England but fourteen days after this was setup, no such scheme yet existed in Wales.

When pressed about this issue the Welsh Government had initially responded by referring to its own weekly free food box for individuals without support of loved ones networks. However, commendable because this scheme was, it wasn't helpful for many shielding people who had very specific dietary requirements and many didn't want hand outs, they simply thought about being in a position to buy their own food.

The strangest point about this was the Welsh Government appeared to have no idea why there is a delay.

Minister for environment, energy and rural affairs Lesley Griffiths said that the delay was due to her personal concerns about data protection issues whereas just two weeks later Mark Drakeford said that there was actually "no delay in getting supermarkets the information" but which were slow in taking it down.

When WalesOnline approached the supermarkets all of them asserted reason for the delay was since the Welsh Government had taken time getting them the data.

You can read about how this affected people here.

Missing their testing target

At the start of April Mark Drakeford and Vaughan Gething had set the prospective of 9,000 tests each day after April. But on the 30th Wales conducted just 1,090 tests in a day.

There isn't any denying this attempt was torpedoed through the UK Government commandeering 5,000 tests each day. The actions of the UK Government managed to get incredibly hard to satisfy the 9,000 target.

However a few of the blame must fall at the feet from the Welsh Government as well. Roche themselves deny that there was any written agreement together and also the Welsh Government.

Emails obtained via a Freedom of Information Request (the Welsh Government tried to stop them released), demonstrate both that PHW felt it have been sidelined through the UK Government which was extremely na”ive in not securing an itemized agreement. Read detailed information here.

Ultimately, by the time Wales was able to conduct a decent amount of daily tests the height of the first wave had passed.

The catastrophe in Welsh care homes

Up until June 19 last year, a total of 717 of the most vulnerable individuals our society had died with the virus after it got inside Welsh care homes. This didn't have to happen. Other countries who had high rates from the virus were able to keep your disease from care homes. These places were always going to be probably the most vulnerable areas of Wales (except perhaps hospitals).

Wales lost 3.4% of all its 23,000 care home residents within the first wave.

This is way higher than Nz (0.04%), Germany (0.4%), Canada (1.5%), Denmark (0.5%). Italy, whose health service was overwhelmed by the virus, performed better (3.1%). Wales did have the ability to perform better than the UK as a whole, which lost a terrible 5.3% of its care home population.

Many care property owners point the culprit squarely at the Welsh Government for neglecting to test people being discharged from hospital, thereby seeding herpes within Wales' care settings. Some care homes were actually pressured to consider people without an evaluation as policy makers desperately tried to make room in hospital for Covid patients.

It was not until April 29 that Vaughan Gething changed the insurance policy to permit all residents entering homes to be tested. Until that time, just those with symptoms were permitted to possess a test. Even England was weeks ahead of him with Matt Hancock announcing on April 14 that everybody entering care homes might be tested.

Experts on the Sage committee knew the risks of transmission from non-diagnosed Covid-19 positive patients and staff well before this- but nothing ended to prevent elderly patients flooding from virus-ridden hospitals into care homes without a test.

You can read a complete analysis of the issue here.

The bungling from the lb500 payment for carers

After the catastrophe in care homes the Welsh Government attempted to make amends with those employed in the sector by providing them a lb500 thank you payment. This is good theoretically as people in the sector could be very low paid and had taken significant risks over the early months from the pandemic.

However used it was a poorly thought out, poorly executed rush response to curry favour from the sector who felt disappointed.

On April 30 announced that all care home and domiciliary workers would get a lb500 gift in the Welsh Government. Immediately people were asking who this applied to? Maybe it was solely those directly looking after people or made it happen include professions like cleaners or chiefs too?

Within a few days the Welsh Government clarified what “all care home and domiciliary workers” actually meant saying that the payment would only affect people “providing personal care”. This meant the cleaners and cooks were not included. However a month later on June 5 this could change again with the First Minister announcing that kitchen and domestic staff working in care homes would receive the lb500 extra payment meaning it now applied to 64,000 people.

However the biggest issue originated from the lack of coordination in the UK Government. In the announcement Mark Drakeford attracted the united kingdom Government to not tax the payment or to penalise people by paying out less in working tax credits or any other benefits which refused This request was ignored.

In reality this resulted in some workers would only receive lb125 from the lb500 payment. They've already preferred PPE and Covid tests.

That Wales v Scotland Six Nations game farce – and also the failure to lock down sooner

Just as the virus was removing, 20,000 Scotland fans travelled to Cardiff to watch the Six Nations game between Wales and Scotland

On March 12 the united kingdom moved out of the "contain" phase into the "delay" phase, the danger level was raised to high, and a person with symptoms was asked to self-isolate for a week. Two other Six Nations games were cancelled already cancelled as was forthcoming football match between Wales and also the USA. The Premier League had been on hold until a minimum of April.

Incredibly, with all of this going on, the Wales against Scotland game was still being planned to go ahead in Cardiff on March 14.

Despite this health minister Vaughan Gething said the Welsh Government said “There is nothing medical reason at the moment to ban such events.”

At the same time frame Ireland had 43 cases coupled with just ordered all schools to shut whereas Wales had 25 cases and was allowing 70,000 individuals to gather in one place as well as all of the pub gatherings related to these events.

In the finish the Welsh Government never did cancel the big event. It was left to the WRU to do it. The Welsh Government also didn't cancel the two Stereophonics gigs that really went ahead that weekend with thousands packed into Cardiff's Motorpoint. This refusal to act helped spread the virus further. There have been calls available with Plaid leader Adam Price call for them to take “urgent and aggressive action” rather “than waiting for instruction from London”.

Other issues a Welsh inquiry needs to look at

Lack of clarity early on about the vaccine rollout

When referring to vaccines we must be absolutely clear that the Welsh Government's vaccine rollout has been a real success to date with rates significantly higher in Wales than other UK nations.

However, after the first month of the rollout in January there were serious questions for the Welsh Government to reply to. After four weeks of jabbing people in the arms there seemed real confusion around the rollout. Sources in the Welsh NHS, different health boards, Public Health Wales in addition to GPs all said they are unclear what the actual strategy is for delivery of vaccines and there were no clear targets or time frames. Other UK nations had published long coherent plans but the Welsh Government had not.

There would be a real feeling of confusion with the Welsh Government and PHW not helping the situation if you take quite a long time to publish any data. The data we'd suggested Wales was behind on the rollout compared other areas of the UK but it was hard to say because the Welsh data am old. You can read an exam of this here.

Luckily, inside a matter of months there was a notable shift in both speed from the rollout and clarity over the plan.

Vaughan Gething's errors

No it's possible to doubt that as then health minister, Vaughan Gething had one of the toughest jobs in Wales. Over the border his counter part Matt Hancock was subjected to unrelenting criticism until he groped himself right into a resignation.

Some mistakes under such presser are perhaps inevitable. However Mr Gething made his fair share during the period of this crisis.

First there is a series of occasions where he said disparaging things about his colleagues as he thought his microphone was off. Within the Senedd he explained "exactly what the f*** may be the matter together with her?" following perfectly legitimate criticism from fellow Labour MS Jenny Rathbone. Months later as he was being questioned through the health committee he again responded very angrily to any type of scrutiny. Fellow Welsh Labour MS David Rees asked: "How many care homes across Wales are you aware of that are allowing visits and just how many are not?" Mr Gething was then seen to roll his eyes and mutter "ridiculous question."

This wasn't the only real time Mr Gething has responded angrily to legitimate attempts at scrutiny. When WalesOnline asked him last summer when the Welsh Government's insufficient testing capacity had played a role within the decision to not test residents going back to care homes. He responded irritably "you're wrong” and that despite "treble the amount of testing capacity”, he still would not have allowed testing of individuals without symptoms in care homes.

He also caused a stir after he and his family were seen eating chips on a bench in the height from the first Covid wave, when people were only allowed outside for certain things and exercise. Political opponents accused him of breaking Covid rules and also the First Minister needed to defend his actions. The following week, fences were put up to stop people while using area where he'd sat.

On surface of this, Vaughan Gething was one of the ministers who'd repeat the misleading statements (discredited above) that the NHS never was overwhelmed and Wales never lacked for PPE.

GCSE along with a Level results nightmare

Last summer across Wales 42% of a level grades were lowered by an algorithm used to "standardise" grades after all exams were cancelled.

That method was ditched after an outcry from headteachers, students and parents as it because apparent that it particularly disadvantaged high achievers from lower achieving schools and people on free school meals.

After the Welsh Government initially dug in its heels the then education minister Kirsty Williams backtracked and apologised saying: "That was not the intention of anyone – not me, not Qualifications Wales, not the WJEC – but its right that I apologise directly and unreservedly to the young adults. I'm truly sorry."

Not restarting elective procedures quickly enough

As Wales entered September 2021 there was real concern about the backlog of "non urgent" operations that had built up. These procedures were only non urgent for the reason that they were not emergency, these were still vital for the part of question and frequently involved treating cancer or relieving significant pain. Data suggested that between March and April 2021 there have been almost 21,200 fewer surgical and midwifery admissions.

Despite the low Covid rates the amount of elective procedures being carried out by the NHS hadn't really got going again. Most from the challenge was the fact that it took considerably longer to clean operating theatres between procedures to ensure there was no Covid spread. Therefore resulted in each operation took significantly longer, therefore capacity was lower.

To try to understand this going ahead of the winter wave the Royal College of Surgeons called on the Welsh Government to produce "Covid light" hospitals which would avoid seeing any Covid patients, people are screened before they're going directly into make certain they do not have the virus and staff screened two times a week. This could allow hospitals to squeeze in much more procedures to tackle the backlog.

The Welsh Government however refused this call and instead left it to individual health boards to decide leading to accusations of a post code lottery.

Test Trace Protect neglecting to keep on top of cases.

Over lb100m has been allocated to TTP in Wales.

Research has suggested that whenever coronavirus transmission was high prior to the firebreak this past year, TTP reduced the R number from approximately 1.7 to 1.3. Using the newer R number and enhancements to monitoring, its impact could be to reduce R from 1.3 to 0.8.

However, should you measure a contract tracing system on whether or not this prevents the virus growing unmanageable it's totally and utterly failed.

TTP was well-established when the second wave took off and was completely overwhelmed ( you can easily see a full analysis of this here ). It's also in position again now as the Delta variant driven third wave gets choosing no indications of stopping. So in terms of preventing fresh Covid waves it simply hasn't worked.

The reason for this is complex but is probably partly down to definitions of a “close contact”. Taiwan has an average of 17 per case whereas the UK average is two. This broader definition means that they're more prone to get people with herpes to self isolate (though this is in a great inconvenience to more individuals and short term cost towards the economy).

The other issue is that it takes far to long for close contacts to be contacted by the service meaning that advice to isolate comes too late. This really is compounded through the delays experienced previously within the Lighthouse Labs.

You can read a complete analysis of TTP in Wales here.

The amount of time young people have been out of school

The effect on young people throughout this crisis continues to be truly appalling.

As along with the debacle around GCSSE and A Level results, there was even the inescapable fact that many children spent, many months, from education.

Inevitably this hit the poorest, least well off children the hardest. Homeschooling in a house with a garden is a very different proposition to being educated in a flat. Particularly when the parent delivering the home schooling teaching content not in their first language. The way in which the college closure have disproportionately hit some children a lot more than others has been a real issue.

This is not only right down to children's economic background, but also the school they attend having a large discrepancy in the levels of home education provision from school to school.

Add to this the chaos last summer around reopening schools because the Welsh Government became embroiled in a three way battle involving local authorities and also the unions.

Despite everything above, there's still no arrange for a Welsh specific inquiry

Despite all the mistakes and errors in the above list, First Minister Mark Drakeford has ruled out having a Welsh specific Covid inquiry instead stating that it should be part of a UK wide inquiry.

The Pm Boris Johnson has indicated that this inquiry won't start until March 2022 meaning it will likely be years until lessons are learnt.

As this information has demonstrated there have been decisions taken within Wales that resulted in deaths within Wales that need to be properly investigated – not simply a footnote in a UK Government inquiry.

The Welsh Government provided an extensive comment with this article which is contained in the factboxes interspersed through this article.