The “majority of headroom” in Wales will be used to ensure that schools will reopen for children aged seven and under from February 22, Health Minister Vaughan Gething has said.

“We’re looking to see if there are other small things we can do and the reason we’re saying small things is we’re trying to manage people’s expectations,” Mr Gething told a press conference in Cardiff.

“We’re not suddenly going to have a wide-scale opening of all the measures and lots of mixing between different households.”

Coronavirus restrictions in Wales are formally reviewed every three weeks, with the Welsh Government cabinet due to carry out a review this week.

Mr Gething said ministers would receive more information from the country’s chief medical officer, scientific advisers as well as data about transmission rates and NHS capacity, before making their decision.

“I’m not going to get drawn into speculating on a suite of individual potential measures because we’re trying to be as upfront with people as we can without getting drawn into unhelpful speculation,” Mr Gething added.

The equivalent of one in four people in Wales have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, Health Minister Vaughan Gething has said.

Mr Gething told a press conference in Cardiff that take-up of the vaccine in the first four priority groups in Wales had been “incredibly high”.

He said people in priority groups five to nine in Wales should be offered a vaccine by the end of April.

The Welsh Government will hold a review into coronavirus restrictions in the country this week, with the cabinet using any “headroom” to return the youngest children to face-to-face teaching.

“The seven-day average rate has fallen below 100 cases per 100,000 people for the first time in many, many months, the positivity rate is less than 10 per cent, and the R number remains below one,” Mr Gething said.

He described the figures as “positive” but said Wales had to be “very careful” about easing of lockdown measures due to the presence of new strains of Covid-19 in the UK.