I thank Vikki Howells for that question, Llywydd, and I'll take her final point first, because, after a prolonged period of the number of people falling ill with coronavirus in Wales falling week by week, in the last 10 days we've seen numbers rising again, and not simply rising but rising rapidly and at an accelerating rate. Now, Wales continues to have the lowest incidence of coronavirus of any of the four UK nations, but the numbers that we are seeing are driving more people into hospital, and we've seen the very preliminary signs of more people needing intensive care as well. So, these are very concerning circumstances that we are having to face over this week, as we come to the end of the three-week review.

There are three factors that our advisers point to behind those numbers. The first, and the most significant, is the rise in BA.2—the variant of omicron that is even more transmissible than the original BA.1. There is the impact of vaccine waning, particularly amongst the oldest and most vulnerable parts of the population, because they were vaccinated first and they had their boosters first, and if there is any waning, it hits them first. And then there are the signs that maybe people are not as committed as they were earlier in the pandemic to taking those simple actions—mask wearing, social distancing, and so on, that continue to be, collectively, the most important actions we can take. So, that is part of why the continued vaccination programme is so important—the spring booster campaign, aimed at people aged over 75.

And the point that Vikki Howells made about needing to make sure that vaccination centres continue to be accessible to the whole population is, of course, a very important one. As we move into living safely with COVID, the number of centres is going to have to reduce, and we're going to have to release staff back into all the other important jobs that we expect them to be able to carry out within the health service. In the Cwm Taf health board area, there are significant numbers of people in those categories—3,400 people who will be vaccinated at home because they are housebound. And for people who have no access to their own vehicle and no access to public transport, then the 'vaxi taxi' scheme, operated through Age Connect—so a third sector-led scheme—will be available, to make sure that people in the circumstances set out by Vikki Howells aren't left without any means of accessing that vital vaccination.