Welsh Labour slammed for ignoring calls to cancel ‘superspreader’ Scotland rugby match

At least 20,000 Scotland fans travelled to Cardiff on March 13, 2020 after both Vaughan Gething and his predecessor Mark Drakeford ignored the Welsh Rugby Union’s desperate plea to cancel the Six Nations match

Wales’ Labour government has come under fire for failing to intervene during a Six Nations rugby union tournament in Cardiff at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Welsh Government was persuaded to postpone the Saturday, March 14 match against Scotland by the Welsh Rugby Union and Public Health Wales. Ministers chose to do nothing, though, and the WRU ultimately decided to cancel the event at midday on Friday—just one day after announcing it would proceed as scheduled.

By then, the Welsh capital was home to at least 20,000 Scottish rugby fans, many of whom had spent the weekend drinking in pubs and touring shops and tourist attractions, enhancing the virus’s potential to spread its lethal initial version.

Gareth Davies, a representative of the WRU, stated that permitting the match to proceed would have been “reckless” at the recent UK Covid-19 Inquiry proceedings in Wales. However, Vaughan Gething said there was “no scientific reason to cancel the game” after taking Mark Drakeford’s post as First Minister last month.

This was in spite of the fact that football games and other sports events in England, Scotland, and throughout Europe, as well as the other two Six Nations games scheduled for that weekend, had already been postponed. The risks associated with large-scale gatherings were also considered on March 12 at a Cobra meeting attended by Welsh ministers and authorities.

The inquiry was told that Welsh Labour had even postponed its spring conference in Llandudno but Mr Gething, who was the Senedd health minister at the time, insisted: “I think, with respect, counsel, the event in the rugby stadium is different to an indoor conference.”

However, he admitted: “You look back and it’s one of the choices that I do think I would have made differently, and that is the value and the benefit of hindsight, looking at where we are now.”

His predecessor, Mr Drakeford, was also grilled before inquiry chair Lady Hallett in Cardiff last month. He attempted to blame both the WRU and the UK Government for the late U-turn, despite then WRU chair Mr Davies contacting his office to express concerns about the game going ahead on Wednesday, March 11.

Mr Drakeford said: “My position was that it would have been preferable for the match not to happen. But I had no medical evidence to – that I could make to support that conclusion, I had no agreement from the UK Government to that position. And I have no legal power, actually, to enforce that decision, because the power lies only in conjunction with the Welsh Rugby Union.”

Lead counsel Tom Poole KC said, “might it not be said that it was in fact an abdication of responsibility on the part of the Welsh Government” in response.

The game has been referred to as a “superspreader event” by the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru organization. In her final argument, Kirsten Heaven said: “The Welsh Government recklessly declined to take the initiative to cancel a Wales v Scotland rugby match scheduled for March 14, 2020 in the face of significant concerns raised and a recommendation to do so by Public Health Wales, leaving it to the Welsh Rugby Union to make the decision whether to do so, which of course they did.”