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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:37 pm on 2 February 2021.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:37, 2 February 2021

Thank you. On the second dose, without affecting the wider roll-out, we're already planning for the delivery of second doses, which—. In, literally, the coming few weeks we'll start to see more people getting their second dose, and those numbers will increase, because, as you'll know, in the first three to four weeks, we had lower numbers of people being vaccinated compared to what we're doing within this week. Our ability then to keep on going at the  first dose rate we're currently doing will be affected by the overall amount of supply. So, we're going to need to think about making sure we have the right vaccine available for the second dose—so people who have had Pfizer should get Pfizer for the second dose, fewer concerns and issues about AstraZeneca, and we'll then need to know what then is left for us to deliver in terms of new first doses. So, again, it's a matter of supply, as well as then, going back to Angela Burns's point, about making use of the wider primary care team—so, our pharmacists—and our ability to then deliver an even bigger programme. If we have the supply to do that, we'll need to make use of that wider team in primary care.

On the European Union and the vaccine, I think there's wide recognition, however you feel about the European Union, that the last week or two has not been great from an EU point of view. It was extraordinarily unhelpful in the way that issue was presented. I think common sense has now prevailed. Because we actually all need each other—both about travel, because, actually, coronavirus was largely imported to Wales when Brits went to Europe for holidays and came back in January, February last year; the February half-term was a significant importation event from travel directly from Europe, not from China. So, actually, those patterns of travel aren't going to be significantly different in the future, with future threats. It's also just the case that we are already getting vaccine from Europe, so we actually need good relationships with European partners to make sure that we're able to see vaccines cross international borders, just as the supply of AstraZeneca, some of which is already manufactured here in Wales.

And your question about vaccine production in Wales—of course, AstraZeneca supply and fill is in Wrexham already. So, we already have some of that manufacture, and one of the new candidate vaccines has a vaccination production base in Scotland. So, the UK already has vaccination production within it, but that in itself isn't going, I think, to deliver the sort of certainty that we'd want. So, we still need a very practical and grown-up relationship with European production centres, as well as pharmaceutical companies that have bases in more than one part of Europe. And, when it comes to vaccine resistance, it's one of the things that, I think, has come up before. So, it's certainly a part of what our scientists look at, as well as researchers in individual companies looking to develop the next vaccines.

And capacity—capacity has sprung up because of the way we've been able to move and use our primary care team. Vaccinations are normally undertaken primarily by primary care in any event. The thing about our highly successful immunisation programmes for children and young people around the flu campaign—well, it's primary care that does that, whether in a general practice or, indeed, in a pharmacy, or health visitors and others who will go and visit people at the earliest of ages. So, we're never going to have, if you like, a permanent structure of vaccination centres. If that were the case, then we'd be living with threats on a daily basis forever and a day. But, if we're needed to flex up again, I think what has been shown is that primary care is remarkably flexible and extraordinarily willing to protect people they care for on a regular basis, and I'm very grateful for all they've done.