Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething has criticised ‘anti-mask’ protesters, after disruption at a Tesco in Bangor at the weekend.
Police were called to the store on Saturday, 25 January, after 6 protestors began campaigning about the need to wear facemasks in the store. Security guards prevented them entering the store and shoppers were forced to wait outside until the protestors were dispersed by police.
Vaughan Gething was asked his thoughts on the protest at today’s Welsh Government briefing.
Mr Gething said: “People conducting this sort of protest that is deliberately disruptive, I think they need to think about the disruption they are causing to other people and they need to consider the fact they know they are breaking the law and they can expect action to be taken.
“It is really about how irresponsible this is, because we now about how transmission works, we know that you are at less risk outside, but you shouldn’t, because of your beliefs, do something to cause real alarm to other people who are following the law.
“All of us need to play our part and I just ask people to look again at what’s happening, to think about the challenges we are living through and the extraordinary measures we are facing and to look at the pressure that our National Health Service is under.
“The deaths that we are reporting, the critical care beds that are occupied are not a fiction, it is very very real, all of us need to look at ourselves, to play our part and to help support the great majority of people who are already doing the right thing, at real cost to each and every one of us.”
A spokesman for North Wales Police told North Wales Live that officers were called to Tesco in Bangor after reports of an ‘anti face mask’ protest.
He added: “Six individuals were spoken to. Five dispersed immediately, and one was reported for breaches of the Covid regulations.”
