3. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Update on COVID-19 Vaccinations

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:24 pm on 26 January 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:24, 26 January 2021

Thank you for your comments, and I agree with you that it's been a phenomenal performance from colleagues in primary care and right across our NHS Wales-led team to deliver the significant additional pace in vaccine delivery. And I'm pleased that you and colleagues find the briefings with me, the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser on health to be useful. We'll continue to do that.

On the vaccine messaging, I think this is a useful opportunity to restate that it does take time to receive the protection from the first dose of the vaccine, and so people can't have their vaccine shot and then act as if everything is normal for them and proceed to take greater risks. That wouldn't mean that they'd be benefiting from the protection at all. But even with the protection, you're right: the vaccines have been trialled and show data about protecting people from harm. That means you're much more likely to be protected from becoming seriously unwell and subject to hospitalisation or death, once the protection has kicked in. That does not mean, though, that you won't get COVID; it does not mean that you can't transmit COVID to another person, so it's really important that everyone still follows the protective measures that are in place for all our benefit. Even with significant numbers of people covered and protected, there is still going to be the potential for real harm to be done if there is a breakdown in social distancing, if there is much more mixing between people indoors, and people forget the protective behaviours of hand washing, or face coverings, and of having good ventilation.

It's particularly important, I think, to make this point when, sadly, our death figures in the last week have been so very high. We are starting to see an improvement across our NHS with the pressure, we're starting to see a levelling off and a slight levelling down in admissions, but that is against the backdrop of record highs of people in our hospitals. It's worth reminding people that whilst we're seeing an improvement, that improvement still means that critical care today is operating at 140 per cent, down from 150 per cent, but still 140 per cent of its normal capacity, so we all still need to stick with this for another period of time to make sure we don't lose people who don't need to fall off the road on the journey that we're on to the end of pandemic.