Health Minister will
today publish the Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy,
which sets out three key milestones.
It comes as the latest figures show more than 86,000 people
have received the vaccine. Wales will publish daily vaccine
figures from today.
The three milestones set out in the plan are:
- By mid-February – all care home residents and staff;
frontline health and social care staff; everyone over 70 and
everyone who is clinically extremely vulnerable will have
been offered vaccination.
- By the Spring – vaccination will have been offered to all
the other phase one priority groups. This is everyone over 50
and everyone who is at-risk because they have an underlying
health condition.
- By the autumn – vaccination will have been offered to all
other eligible adults in Wales, in line with any guidance
issued by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation
(JCVI).
In total, around 2.5m people throughout Wales could be
offered Covid vaccines by September, depending on further
advice from the JCVI.
The strategy depends on sufficient and regular supplies of
the vaccines being delivered. It will be kept under review in
line with supply of the vaccine and any further advice from
the JCVI.
Health Minister
said:
“The Covid vaccines offer our best hope of a return to the
normality we are looking forward to after such a difficult
year, which has turned all our lives upside down.
“Delivering this vaccination programme to the people in
Wales is a huge task but an enormous amount of work is
going on to make it a success.
“We are making good progress with thousands more people
being vaccinated every day.
“Over the coming week we will see the programme pick up
further speed with more clinics opening and the first
vaccines to be given by pharmacists.”
To reach as many people as safely and as quickly as possible,
we are continuing to accelerate the vaccination programme as
more supplies of the two vaccines become available.
This includes:
- The number of mass vaccination centres increasing to 35
over the coming weeks, with at least one in each county. We
started with seven, five weeks ago.
- Military support in the mass vaccination centres – there
are 14 immunisers and 70 other personnel providing support.
- 100 GP practices providing clinics by the end of this
week.
- The first pharmacies to provide the Oxford-AstraZeneca
vaccine will start vaccinating in North Wales in the next
week.
- 14 mobile units, run by community nurses, which are
taking the vaccine to care homes.
- Text message vaccination appointment reminders.
Dr Gillian Richardson, who leads the Covid
vaccination programme in Wales, said:
“This is the biggest vaccination programme Wales has ever
seen and the NHS is working incredibly hard to get the
vaccine to as many people as possible, safely and as
quickly as we can.
“People will be invited to come and have a vaccination at a
clinic close to their home or at one of the mass
vaccination centres. I know everyone is really keen to get
their jab but please wait until you are contacted for your
turn.
“Vaccination will give us a path out of this pandemic but
it will take us a little while to protect all the people in
Wales who need it – this is why it’s so important everyone
continues to take steps to protect themselves and their
families from coronavirus.”
Data for the number of COVID-19 vaccines administered in
Wales will be available every week day from today.
The daily release accounts for the total number of vaccines
given until 10pm the previous day, which have been recorded
on the COVID-19 Welsh Immunisation System. Actual figures
will be higher due to ongoing data entry.
