Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:41 pm on 2 February 2021.
Minister, we know that our ethnic minority communities are particularly susceptible to the ill-health effects of the virus, and Welsh Government and its working group have done some very good work in terms of illustrating and understanding and responding to that. There is some concern now that some in our ethnic minority communities might be more reluctant to have the vaccine than the general population. I wonder if Welsh Government has any sense as to whether that is the case in Wales, and, if so, to what extent it is an issue.
And, in terms of getting the right messages and the right communication to our ethnic minority populations, I know work is taking place with people in the community getting those messages across and, indeed, in having members of the ethnic minority community in appropriate positions of responsibility, perhaps health professionals, giving those messages and, of course, making sure that the appropriate languages are used. I just wonder if there is any more that Welsh Government is planning to do in terms of building on that work to date, given the potential problem that exists, and also whether consideration is being given to the use of mosques as vaccination centres, if we could identify buildings that have sufficient space and were suitable in terms of their physical nature. I'd be grateful if you could give us more of a picture of the work going on to address these issues, Minister, because they're obviously highly significant, given the greater ill-health effect that the virus has had on our black and Asian communities.