There is "no evidence" that an increase in visitors to Powys has led to any spikes in coronavirus in the county, and another full lockdown remains unlikely, the First Minister has said.

Although case numbers have been rising throughout the UK, community transmission of the virus and number of cases in Powys has been low for most of the summer as lockdown measures were eased.

The spikes that the county has experienced have been individual outbreaks in specific locations, and not the result of widespread community transmission.

These have included cases being found at a caravan park in Welshpool, and at the Sidoli dessert factory in the town last month, which led to a mobile testing station being rolled out and used by hundreds of people.

At a Welsh Government press conference to give an update on the coronavirus crisis, the County Times asked First Minister Mark Drakeford whether Powys would be included in any 'blanket' measures which would affect the rest of Wales should cases continue to rise in other parts of the country.

The First Minister said he would seek to avoid another full national lockdown for Wales.

"I want to avoid blanket measures as much as we can", he said.

"As you say there has been lots of visitors from outside Wales as well as from within Wales to holiday destinations and we've not got evidence that that has led to the transmission of the virus into those communities, and tourism is a very important part of those local economies.

"So as much as possible, our aim in the Welsh Government is to have a small number of national measures supplemented where necessary by local action and those people in the six local authorities in South East Wales who are living under far tighter restrictions have seen the impact in their lives. Local measures to reflect local circumstances."

When the County Times asked about the prospect of spectators soon being allowed to return to domestic football and rugby matches, the First Minister admitted the "outlook was bleak".

He said: "I'm afraid the outlook is not good. The Prime Minister said yesterday that plans in England to allow spectators to attend sports events were not going ahead, that the pilots that had been happening in England are being postponed.

"We held three modest pilots here in Wales at the very start of this month including a couple of sporting events. My hope at that time was that 10 days ago at the end of the last three-week review, I could have announced a further set of pilots with slightly larger crowds.

"I'm afraid even then we decided that was not a sensible move to make in the circumstances. Since then things have got more difficult, not less difficult, the decisions across all borders to pull back from some of the plans that they had made mean it is difficult to be optimistic about a swift return of crowds to sporting events whether they're large events in professional sport or even in the more local types of activity that we know are so important in so many communities."