7. What is the Welsh Government doing to encourage coronavirus vaccine take-up? OQ56978

I thank the Member for that very important question. Efforts to boost take-up amongst those still unvaccinated against COVID-19 continue, with a range of actions in place to enable easy access and to build trust. Pop-up clinics, walk-in centres, drive-in clinics and the work of health board outreach workers are amongst the methods deployed to do so.

I think it’s important to note that take-up across all demographic groups remains incredibly high, despite anti-vaxxers making a lot of noise, but remaining in a tiny minority. But we need to move on. We’ve seen lots of good work, as you say, in terms of reaching out to more vaccine-hesitant communities. So, how is that learning now informing the roll-out to the 12 to 15-year-olds? Because the message isn’t quite the same, is it? Pregnant women, for example, need to know that COVID, particularly in the third trimester, increases the risk of severe illness and hospitalisation, whereas for young people, yes it’s about protection from COVID and long COVID, but it’s also missing school and the disruption and the upset that that incurs.

I thank Joyce Watson. Those are all really important points. She’s right that vaccine take-up in Wales has been very high and it’s been very high across the age ranges. There is a gap between vaccine-hesitant communities and everybody else, but that gap has narrowed. It's not fast enough, but every three weeks we publish the figures, and every three weeks we see that gap slowly being eroded. And that is because of all the actions that I mentioned in my original answer, plus everything else we do—vaccine centres in faith centres, cultural centres, community centres, taking the message out to where people themselves are to be found.

We're right to be worried about the activities of the anti-vaccine people. I was very concerned to get some reports over the weekend of parts of the Member's own region where leaflets were being delivered and children targeted by anti-vaxxers. That does create a climate that makes it more difficult to persuade some people, because they hear this deeply misleading information, and they get that information before you're able to get to them with more accurate and persuasive information. For pregnant women, I completely agree with what Joyce Watson said: the vaccine is safe for pregnant women throughout pregnancy, and the risk from COVID is much higher than it would be from the vaccine.

For 12 to 15-year-olds, we have deliberately allowed a period of time for there to be those conversations between parents, their children and the people who are responsible for the vaccine programme in different parts of Wales, to make sure that those young people get the best possible chance to have the best possible information, and then, as we hope, make their minds up to take up the offer of vaccination.

Finally, question 8—Vikki Howells.