Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 1:53 pm on 2 December 2020.
The only choices we'll make about vaccine supplies that come to Wales will be on the basis of how they're effectively delivered to protect people across the population, and the order of priority against people's clinical needs and benefit, taking into account the practical challenges of delivery of that vaccine. As we've just run through, the Pfizer vaccine presents a particular challenge. We'll wait and see what the regulator has to say about other vaccine candidates. Whilst it's promising, we've been really cautious and really clear not to try to give people an impression that everything will be resolved and it's all inevitable. We have to make sure the regulatory process is done in a way that people believe in the safety and the effectiveness of the vaccine, and we'll be clear with the public about those. It's really important to be clear that politicians don't decide whether a vaccine is safe; an independent regulator does that. Politicians and our national health service then have the responsibility to deliver that vaccine equitably across the population to, hopefully, deliver the future that all of us want to have beyond this current pandemic.