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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:14 pm on 14 December 2021.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 5:14, 14 December 2021

Thanks, Rhianon. You're absolutely right; the double dose is not enough. But the last thing I want to do is to put off people who haven't had any doses at all. They're the ones I'm still most concerned about—people who have had no protection whatsoever. Our ICU departments are really under a huge amount of pressure, and some of that is because there are people in there who have had no vaccinations at all, and it's putting pressure on our ICU system unnecessarily. I do really plead with people to think about how their actions are really having an impact on other people, in the sense that they may be taking up a hospital bed that somebody else could be taking for an emergency that is not of their making. And I think it's really important that we get people to understand their responsibility to the wider community and wider society here. Because none of us know how we're going to respond if we contract coronavirus, so we just need to really underline that.

We will be, as I emphasised, doing walk-in centres, but they won't be on a free-for-all basis; they will be in specific cohorts. So, all of those things are being worked out in the next few days. But literally—what day are we today? Tuesday—we've been working all weekend on this and, obviously, there is a huge amount to put in place to really ramp up this programme. It has already been ramped up, but we need to double what we're already doing, so huge amounts of work still to be done. And I do hope that we can all stand together and thank our NHS workforce for the incredible work that they have done, but, more than anything, we are now asking them to go the extra mile once again; at a sensitive time of year, when they do want to be with their families, we're asking them to cancel their leave—all of these things. It's another huge ask of the people who've given so much of themselves already.