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A temporary national blockade will be established in Wales, Welsh Prime Minister Mark Drakeford announced.
The Welsh government believes that a two-week lockdown, or firewall, starting at 6pm on Friday is vital to help control the virus.
Around 2.3 million people in Wales already live under local lockdown rules: 15 of the 22 counties in Wales plus Bangor and Llanelli.
The Labor-led Welsh government has also banned people from traveling to Wales from Level 2 and Level 3 areas in other parts of the UK.
But the government believes it must go further. He argues that a sharp shutdown now will give him and the NHS in Wales a break before a difficult winter.
Before the announcement, Plaid Cymru said it continued to “strongly support” a firewall, arguing that it needed to buy time to address “the weaknesses of the test, trace and isolation system.”
Rhun ap Iorwerth, the party’s shadow minister for health and care, said: “I want as few restrictions as possible to be imposed, but properly enforced and with clear support for affected individuals and businesses.
“But sadly, due to the failure of the Welsh and UK governments’ policies to date, to get to that point we need a firewall now to control the virus and start over.”
Plaid has published a 14-point plan that explains how it would try to reduce infections, from increasing the speed of testing to canceling GCSEs and A-levels in 2021.
Conservatives in Wales have called for the science behind the government’s decision to be published in its entirety.
Leaders in the Welsh hotel industry warn that a closure could put the employment of nearly a third of its workforce at risk.
Meanwhile, police in Gwent, southeast Wales, said they detained hundreds of people suspected of violating the Welsh government’s travel ban over the weekend.
