Thanks very much, Russell, and thank you first of all for recognising the incredible efforts that have been made by everybody who has been involved in the vaccine roll-out. I think that we do need to pay tribute to those people who have really made the right calls at the right time throughout that process. I know it was a little bit hairy for my predecessor in the first couple of weeks, but I think that the fact that we made those correct calls right at the beginning has brought us to this point, and I would also like to pay tribute to the Welsh public for responding so readily. The fact that people are so enthusiastic to come forward and to receive their vaccination is something that I think we should be very pleased about.

You’re absolutely right: one of the things that we need to analyse now is whether that vaccination programme has managed to break the link between the incidence of the virus and hospitalisation. Now, early analysis and that early analysis of the data is looking very positive, but we’re still very much in the early days of just analysing how many people. At the moment, there actually are still very few cases of that delta variant, but it is growing exponentially, and so I think those extra two weeks for us to analyse that data was the right call for the Cabinet to make in phasing these restrictions that we made last week.

Certainly, at the moment, I think there’s only one case of the delta variant in a hospital in Wales. Two were previously in hospital and have been released. We are expecting a third wave and, you’re absolutely right, if this delta variant is as contagious as it has been described—maybe 40 per cent to 50 per cent higher than the alpha variant, which is a significant increase—then we are likely to see a lot more cases. So, that is something that we need to keep an eye on. The question, as you say, is: will that lead to hospitalisation? So, we have to be very, very careful, and we’re not out of the woods on this yet, which is why we will take things cautiously and carefully and try and analyse the data in real time.

You asked about the flow of the variant from England into Wales, and you will be aware of how porous the nature of our border is with England. We did this in the past, but actually what we did find was that there are so many people who live on our borders who have a very valid reason to cross that border that actually trying to close the border is very, very difficult in any meaningful way, so we think there will be very difficult, practical issues in terms of closing that border.

There is a huge challenge—no question about it—when it come to waiting lists in Wales. You will have seen that not only did I announce the £100 million additional funding, but also last week I announced £25 million funding for computerised tomography scanners, for better imaging equipment, and when I visited the hospital in Swansea last week, that was one of the questions that was very important to me: is there any point spending on capital if we don’t have the people who are going to be able to analyse the information? I think we’ve got to be creative. I think there are ways of being able to use people even remotely to analyse the data, to analyse the imaging, and so I’m hoping that that will help things. But also, you may be aware that we have a very specific training system for imaging in Wales, for training those people in Wales, to try and make up for what is a difficult situation in terms of numbers of people who are able to work in that radiology space. It’s not an issue that’s just true for Wales; it’s true certainly across the rest of the United Kingdom in terms of finding those experts.

And when it comes to primary care, we are very aware that there are people on the front line in primary care who have been working flat out throughout the pandemic. It seems to be that the intensity of the work seems to be building now, although they have been working throughout the pandemic. We have put in a lot of support for people within the NHS, particularly to support them in terms of mental health support and well-being support. We’ve produced £1 million specifically for health professional support. So, that is working very well, and the feedback we’re getting from the sector is excellent.