Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:47 pm on 9 February 2021.
Minister, well done on a really impressive performance over the last couple of weeks. You and everyone who's working as part of this have dealt with the gap with vaccination rates with England that I previously criticised you for, and I think I should recognise how good it has been over the past two weeks. So, well done. Because, on average, people have been vaccinated later in Wales, because of the earlier slower start, will that lead to anyone being infected or potentially hospitalised or worse because of that slow start? Or do you think any effect from that has now been undone?
Do you yet say that we have caught up with where things had been in England in terms of the percentage of the most vulnerable, groups 1 to 4? We've discussed before that in Wales we have a more elderly age structure. So, are the same percentages yet vaccinated in those most vulnerable groups? Are you getting just a population share of supply from the UK, or is there a recognition in the supply of that higher proportion of elderly people, such that we may now get a bit more than that?
Thank you for the new report that's come out today. Looking through that, you speak of the achievements of the markers and the milestones. You refer to three markers through January for ambulance staff, care homes and deployment to GPs, and celebrate having achieved that. What's happened to the marker of 70 per cent of the over-80s by 24 January? Was that never a marker, or has that been airbrushed from the history of this? You highlight the very good numbers on Friday, 30,000, and 34,000 on Saturday. Are you able to update us on the numbers for Sunday and Monday, and how do those compare?
And finally, it's good to know that the over-70s should be getting in touch. I think that will help Members where we've had people who've perhaps said they hadn't it yet. We can get back and say that if they're over 70, they need to get in touch. Just yesterday I was listening to the BBC Radio 4 PM programme. It was explaining that people in England should call if they were over 70 and haven't had it, but people in Wales shouldn't. Yet, today, we're told they should. Is there still more work to do in joining up communications and trying to have a better UK approach to those communications when things are different or changing, so that we try and co-ordinate those in a clearer way for people?