MOST intensive care patients at the Grange University Hospital are unvaccinated, says an ICU consultant.

Dr Ami Jones, who is based at the Grange, said numbers of patients with Covid admitted to hospital up to January 2 had risen from 79 the previous week to 123, although ICU numbers had remained static with a ‘steady trickle’ of admissions.

The Aneurin Bevan University Health Board doctor’s update came as Mark Drakeford’s extension of Wales’ current Covid restrictions last Friday came under fire from one of the nation’s epidemiologists.

Prof John Watkins of Cardiff University, who has advised the Welsh and UK governments, called for rules to be lowered to pre-Omicron variant levels, saying booster jabs meant the threat was no worse than that posed by Delta.

Swansea University psychology lecturer Dr Simon Williams also weighed in by saying people are suffering “fatigue” and “uncertainty” over the different Covid rules either side of the border, saying “potentially conflicting messages” about the Omicron variant had left people in “limbo” about what safety precautions to make.

Last week saw a spat between the First Minister and UK PM Boris Johnson, with the latter slamming the ‘baroque eccentricities’ of Wales’ more restrictive regulations in the House of Commons, while other Tory MPs described it as ‘ludicrous’ and ‘bonkers’ that Welsh fans can’t watch sport at a ground, but can do so in the pub.

Mr Drakeford hit back on Friday, saying the PM was failing to protect people in England from Covid.

“The one country that stands up as not taking action to protect its population is England,” claimed the First Minister, who described the Westminster Government as “politically paralysed”.

In Wales, much of the sporting calendar at both professional and grassroots level has been thrown into turmoil, with the Welsh Rugby Union considering whether to hold its home Six Nations games in England, and no crowds for the weekend’s FA Cup matches or the Welsh Grand National two weeks ago.

Newport Gwent Dragons have had their last three lucrative Welsh derby games postponed, while many grassroot clubs and leagues have also suspended fixtures amid the current limit of 50 spectators and team illnesses, while over the border there are no restrictions on outdoor sports in England.

In her update, Dr Jones said: ““We haven’t seen [a rise] in the ICU. We’ve had a steady trickle throughout the last few weeks actually so we’ve got about static numbers.

“The massive majority of patients we have got in intensive care at the moment are unvaccinated, so vaccines have made a huge difference.

“Across the rest of the hospital there are quite a lot of new Covid patients coming in,” she added.

“Some of those are sick with Covid, and some of them coincidentally have Covid, so maybe they’ve got a burst appendix or a broken leg and they happen to have Covid.

“You might think that doesn’t matter if they’re not sick with Covid, but actually that creates quite a lot of stress in the system because they need to be kept separate and they need to have different staff look after them.

“We’re doing our best to try and keep patients as separate as we can but this is a hugely transmissible disease, so it’s really tough.”

Speaking before the extension of the Welsh restrictions on Friday, Prof Watkins said age remains the “major risk factor for poor outcomes” which had been mitigated by “80 to 90 per cent“ of over 70s having had a booster jab.

“We have moved ourselves back to that position where we were in the autumn,” Prof Watkins told BBC Wales…

“My view would be that it is time to review it and, probably, we should certainly be realigning ourselves with the English.”

Dr Williams also told BBC Radio Wales: “When you’ve got different rules in different countries, but effectively we are still sharing the UK, it really hampers people’s understanding and it also undermines rules on both sides.

“And I think when we look back at this in years to come, one of the big failings, I think, across the UK, was the ability to have consistent rules - that just really hinders people.”

Last Friday, Public Health Wales reported 7,915 new Covid cases and 21 further deaths.

The seven-day rolling case rate per 100,000 has continued to climb to 2,324, compared to 2,228 reported on Thursday.

The testing positivity rate - the percentage of Covid tests returning a positive result - has fallen slightly to 51.2 per cent.

There was a daily average of 662 patients with confirmed Covid in hospital beds - a 77 per cent increase on the previous week - although there were two and a half times as many people in hospital at the same point in 2021.

More information on the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board’s vaccination programme can be found at abuhb.nhs.wales/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccine