First Minister Mark Drakeford has said the Welsh Government will strengthen alert level four measures in the country to try and reduce the number of cases of coronavirus in the country.
Holding its first review of the measures that were put in place a week before Christmas, Mr Drakeford said the new, highly contagious strain of the virus has taken a firm foothold in Wales, where cases remain high, one in four tests come back positive and more than 2,700 coronavirus-related patients are being cared for in Welsh hospitals.
Wales is "not yet in a position" where measures such as curfews need to be imposed to control the spread of Covid-19, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.
A curfew of 8pm has been imposed in Northern Ireland for a time as part of restrictions that were introduced there on Boxing Day.
But the First Minister says that while numbers in Wales remain high, they have been improving and there is not a need for a curfew to be part of the restrictions.
Having already announced this morning that the lockdown will continue to 29 January, when it will be reviewed again, Mr Drakeford said that the Welsh Government will be strengthening the alert level four measures in three main areas.
Commenting on the review by the First Minister, Sara Jones, Head of the Welsh Retail Consortium, said: "Retailers continue to take coronavirus measures very seriously and consistently uphold high hygiene and safety standards. Firms have already invested hundreds of millions on safety measures including perspex screens, additional cleaning, and implementing social distancing.
“We will continue to work constructively and positively with the Welsh Government on Covid, and are open to discussing with them what further mitigation measures can be taken and the data and science underpinning their thinking”.
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Ms Jones added: "The consequences of these ongoing restrictions - with non-essential retail already closed for several weeks - will be severe for many Welsh retail businesses who yet again face losing over £100m per week in sales.
"Retailers want to trade their way to recovery but further financial support will be needed or many businesses will go bust and thousands of viable jobs will be lost.
"The biggest difference the government can make is to extend business rates relief from April for those hardest hit by repeated lockdowns."
Commenting on the current restrictions, Mr Drakeford said that it's "frustrating when a small minority act as though those rules do not apply to them".
"I want everyone to know that when people knowingly and persistently break the rules, action will be taken. Too many lives been lost to this awful virus to allow anybody to believe that they do not share in the responsibility that binds us all."
He added that the police and local authorities are doing an incredible job at enforcing the rules and "they have my full support".
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Mr Drakeford said that over the Christmas period, the police have had thousands of conversations with people about the regulations; stopped hundreds of cars and issued more than 300 fines for breaches of the rules.
"And this stepped-up enforcement effort will continue," he said.
"None of us wanted to start the new year in lockdown – but as difficult and as challenging as these early weeks are, we can still look forward to a better 2021 and a route out of this pandemic."
Mr Drakeford said the Welsh Government will publish its plans next week for its vaccination programme.
Asked why information on this has not been made available already, he said he has not been willing to "divert people from getting the programme in place and up and running" to answering questions about it.