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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:33 pm on 23 February 2021.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:33, 23 February 2021

Thank you for the question. I did see the clip of Sir Gareth Edwards, the greatest living Welshman, talking to the First Minister. I think it was very positive in terms of his own experience and what that meant. I hope that other people have had a chance to watch that, and that it will encourage others to make sure that they too go and get their vaccine and receive a warm welcome in the Brewery Field. 

On the Prime Minister's conference yesterday, I think the first point to make is that it's a much better conversation to be having about what we can do in the future, rather than talk about the things we still can't do. We should all have a sense of optimism about the future, but the future is not certain. We have made a deliberate choice to be faithful to the scientific evidence and public health advice that we receive, which is why we have a different approach to school opening in Wales. It is directly in line with the evidence and advice we've had. They've made a different policy choice in England, as they're entitled to do. So, they're storing up to have, if you like, a 'big bang' approach on 8 March. That isn't what our advice says that we should do. It's a choice for English Ministers to do that, and they're entitled to do so, but our risk appetite is different, which is why we're following the advice. 

When I think about international travel, it is one of the things that really bothers me about the future and reimportation, because, by May, we won't have completed the adult population with their first dose, let alone the second dose as well. I remember very well last summer's experience where I changed the rules on quarantine and what people could expect to do when a flight from Zante was in mid-air. We did that because the evidence was mounting at that point about reimportation of coronavirus when we had very low coronavirus levels. Remember that we had levels of two to three in 100,000 at one point in the summer, and we're now talking about the rates being much lower when we're just about 80 in 100,000. So, there has to be real caution for the future.

You may or may not have heard the deputy chief medical officer this morning on Radio Wales, making very clear the point that we simply can't predict months and months into the future what the position will be with the spread of coronavirus with a much more virulent strain, in the sense of its ability to transmit, so much, much more likely to spread. To give, somehow, a baked-in roadmap, with dates not data, going into the middle of the summer, I don't think is the right approach. I think we need to manage people's expectations, and understand that most people are cautious, and want to be assured that, coming out of this, we're not going to lurch into the future and then have to lurch back into lockdown, if at all possible.

I just don't think it's realistic that nightclubs are going to be open in the way that is described in June. I'd be delighted to be wrong, but I'm much more interested in keeping Wales safe, in keeping people alive and well, and not having to introduce much more restrictive measures to restrict national life, with all the public health harm that you'd have to avoid in doing so, but also the economic damage you'd do in bringing back sectors of the economy that we hope to open in a sustained fashion. So, we'll continue to take our approach as to how we keep Wales safe in a cautious, evidence-led way.