On your point about rearranging appointments, it's an extraordinary endeavour to organise the whole programme. That does mean there's a lot of interest and there are people who are worried and getting hold of numbers to ring when they don't need to ring. There's a lot of public expectation and demand. When I had to rearrange my mother's appointment, I rang later in the day and I was able to do so, because I found that during the middle of the day and early in the day that it wasn't easy to get through. So, there's a point there about persevering and wanting to rearrange, but, actually, the starting point is wanting people to attend when they're offered the appointment.

And this is something we discussed at the shadow social partnership council, where trade unions were keen to have an understanding of encouragement from the Government for employers to be understanding and to release people from their time, because it isn't always straightforward for people to attend a vaccination if their employer isn't understanding. The employers' representatives on the social partnership council were positive about wanting people to get vaccinated, because they could see there was a benefit for those individuals, but more than that, for their business and for the people that they work alongside as well. The greater the proportion of people that we protect with vaccination, the more that we can do to provide a safer Wales for us all, and the environment for those businesses to improve from their own prospects as well. 

So, we are looking to have not just a public message about that, but messaging within both sides of the employment relationship about wanting to be positive and enable people to have their vaccines without a cost to them, rather than simply saying people need to do it in their own time, which will actually hamper our efforts. And this will be even more important as we go through each age cohort. Once we get to the under-50s, more and more people of working age will need to have an approach that is consistent and enables vaccination rates to carry on at the pace that we have already set.

On household contact, and you were particularly talking about Merthyr, I understand it's around Gellideg in particular, a couple of streets having a very high number of cases and extended family and relationships where social distancing appears to have broken down, and there does appear to have been household contact. This highlights the fact that the extra household mixing—the indoor mixing—is the way in which coronavirus is still most likely to spread, and to spread very quickly, as we've seen with this particular cluster. And it highlights why we asked the public to do the right thing, not for my sake, but actually because you can otherwise see a real cluster that will interrupt the way people are able to live their lives, and some of those people could fall seriously ill; some of those people could lose their lives as well. So, there is a price to pay, unfortunately, if the public don't continue to support this very difficult—. And I know it's not a pleasant way to have to live our lives, even as we're exiting lockdown, but there is a proper point and purpose to it in keeping us all safe. And I hope that the Merthyr outbreak reinforces positive behaviours for others, not just in Merthyr but across the country about the risks that are still there to be run, especially with the Kent variant.

And on your starting point about the vaccine safety and the public messaging on blood clots, I'm expecting to have an opportunity to talk about this again. The chief medical officer has been talking about this today as well in the media. It's very high-profile reporting across all media platforms, radio and television, and I know that BBC, ITV and Sky have all had significant packages on this, particularly as the European Medicines Agency this afternoon have said that they've reiterated their firm belief that the vaccines are safe, and the balance of risk is absolutely on the side of taking the vaccine with the additional protection that that provides. I think, actually, what will be most helpful is if those European countries that have made this decision at present, if they're going to revisit their choices and, again, restart the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

It's a case in point that we're further along on vaccinating our populations than most other European countries, of course, so they're still vaccinating in many European countries their over-70s where the risk of harm is even higher. So, there's a real point for us all to see the AstraZeneca vaccination programme put back on track, and that will help people who may otherwise be really concerned here to go ahead and get the protection that the vaccination offers. And I should make clear that the AstraZeneca vaccine is the one that I myself had on the weekend.