Roll-out of the COVID-19 Vaccine

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 1:36 pm on 20 January 2021.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 1:36, 20 January 2021

Well, I think it's fair to say that we've made a modest start in comparison to other UK countries, but in terms of other countries around the world, we've made a really rapid start in the first few weeks. If you think of what's happened in the last three weeks, you'll see a really significant increase in the pace of our vaccination effort, as the infrastructure has been put in place to allow more mass vaccination centres to be delivered, and that's really important for use of the Pfizer vaccine. As we're getting more of the AstraZeneca supply, our primary care professionals in particular—general practice, with pharmacy, dentistry and optometry—are making use of their staff coming on board in the very near future as well. Actually, the figures today have gone on even further. We have now vaccinated with at least one dose of the vaccine nearly 176,000 people in Wales, nearly 14,000 people in the figures we've provided for the last day, and you can expect that, by the end of this week, we'll have made another significant step forward compared to last week. So, the pace really is increasing. The numbers demonstrate that, and I look forward to people in Islwyn having their vaccine in the very near future in very large numbers, and I'm very grateful to every general practice within the Islwyn constituency that is playing their part to vaccinate and to protect their residents as quickly as possible.