 Hydiw, yw amfio'r hunain. Rhywbeth gyda Dr. Jill Richardson ar y holl i'r cyfrifolio am y Pethogol Azian Sport fel Wales. Yr hwn yw Dr Frank Ahton, dyna yng nghynref y Cyfrifoloedd Fyrinwy. O на rwy'n meddwl y gallwn ni'n bod i'n gwybod — ond rwy'n meddwl meddwl yma, i ffieithgawr y llunwg yng nghymru, a'n meddwl am y ddweud hynny i'n meddwl yma i'r ddweud o gweithio a'r ddweud o'r dda, ac oes yn dweud o'r ddweud. Yn y gweithio, mae wedyn yn y pandemig, mae gwybod i'n mynd i'n mynd i'r gweithio o gweithio gyda'r coronavirus sydd yn y Wales. Rwy'n gweithio ar y byd. A gweithio, mae'n gweithio ar y cael eu honno newid-wysig o'r holl yng Nghwylol, ac mae'n gweithio ar yr We were aware of 51 further deaths here in Wales, so the rate of coronavirus transmission is increasing and that is happening. All parts of Wales, all of our local health boards are seeing increased rates at the moment. To put this into context the fire break that we had a few weeks ago was successful, it reduced our rate of transmission from about 260 thousand o'i cael 160, ac mae'n rhaid i'r cyffredinol. Mae'r gweithio'r gweithio'r cyffredinol o 226 o 100,000. Felly mae'n gweithio'r cyffredinol yn y Llyfrgell yn y gyfnodol. A dyna'r gweithio, mae'n meddwl i gael gweld y cyfnodol a'r gofynodd yn meddwl yn ymdweithio'r cyffredinol o'r hosbwitiaill ac ymdweithio'r entytaeth yn y rhan o'r cyfriffyrdd, ac mae'n gweithio'r cyfrifyrdd o'r cyfrifyrdd some families can hopefully get some time to spend together. But there is light at the end of the tunnel and we wanted today to talk to you about vaccines and the prospects for vaccines, which have come much nearer as of today and announcement this morning. So I'll hand over to Jill and she can walk us through the developments. Thank you, Frank. Vaccines are one of our greatest public health interventions. Every year they help to save the lives of around three million people around the world. We have vaccines that can prevent more than 20 life-threatening diseases and they've helped us to successfully eradicate smallpox and we're well on the way to defeating polio. Normally it would take around 10 years to develop a vaccine from scratch. But this year we've seen an unprecedented global effort to find a vaccine against coronavirus. There are currently three candidate vaccines which have reported very positive phase three trial results. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the Moderna vaccine and the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. And there are potentially more to come. A fourth vaccine is recruiting for its phase three trial in Cardiff. And a fifth vaccine has been recruiting participants in North Wales. This morning we had the really welcome news that the first of these vaccines, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for use in the UK. This is a significant step forward in response to the pandemic. For the first time we have an opportunity to prevent this terrible illness. A glimmer of light at the end of what has been a very difficult and long year. We hope that MHRA approval for a second vaccine will follow later this month giving even more opportunities. We are ready to start vaccinating as soon as we receive the first supply of vaccine in Wales and have safely deployed it to the NHS. We are working closely with all UK nations. We have tested our plans and these are not without challenges as the Pfizer vaccine must be stored at ultra-low temperatures. We are training healthcare staff to give people this vaccine and are finalising the legal frameworks so the vaccine can be given to the people of Wales. The UK government has ordered tens of millions of doses of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines and Wales will receive its population share. The vaccines will require two doses to be effective. We will be vaccinating people who are most at risk of catching coronavirus and developing serious illnesses based on recommendations at the UK level from the JCVI and as the characteristics of each vaccine allows. The first groups to be offered the vaccine will be frontline NHS and social care workers, people aged over 80 and those that live or work in care homes. People will be invited to come along to have the vaccine at special clinics while the normal NHS services continue to see people. So you will be called for the vaccine if it is your turn. This vaccine is the best way to protect people but no one will be forced to have it. However I would encourage you when you are called to accept this offer which will save lives and protect the NHS and eventually help us to resume to normal life. And now over to Frank. Yes thanks very much Jill and before I go to journalists for questions I just want to make a couple of comments on some of the things that we've been most frequently asked really. First of all to pick up on that point about whether or not people will take up the vaccine. We have worked with Public Health Wales to survey population and we know that over 70% of the population will be looking to accept a vaccine when it's available so that's really good news. So we expect that people will be wanting this vaccine and will come forward for vaccination. The most obvious question we're asked is you know is this vaccine safe and that's the first and foremost question in any of our minds. And we take good comfort from the fact that the MHRA that's the Medicines and Healthcare Product Regulatory Authority has looked very carefully at the data that's been submitted by in this case Pfizer the company that's produced this first vaccine. It's looked at both the safety and the effectiveness. It's looked at the trials they've run and it's concluded that there is sufficient data on safety and effectiveness to allow this to be authorised for use in the UK. So that that is really good news for us. We're often asked you know how has it happened so quickly? As Jill said normally it takes up to 10 years to develop an effective vaccine. This has been done in record time in 10 months and that reflects well on the scientists around the world not just in the UK but globally who've invested time and energy in this. It reflects the huge investment in research and development from the UK government and other governments and research agencies and it also reflects the fact that organisations of regulatory authorities like the MHRA have managed to reduce the paperwork and the bureaucracy while maintaining those critical aspects of safety and effectiveness. The other thing that we we have to think about of course is you know what does this mean for the pandemic and is this the end of the pandemic and of course that has to be has to be our hope but these vaccines and this vaccine in particular has three main purposes. First of all it's to stop people getting infected. Secondly it's to stop people who are infected who become infected from getting a serious disease and ultimately from dying and thirdly it's to stop the transmission of the virus. Now we know from the safety and effectiveness data that the company has submitted and the MHRA has looked at that it's pretty good at those first two things that stopping people getting the infection and that stopping people having serious infections. We just don't know yet whether it will stop transmission that will only be known to us in the fullness of time when vaccines are rolled out so the jury is still very much out on that question and that really is important because it means we still need to think as we start this process of vaccination of vaccinating the population. We still need to remember that there are some really important things that will keep us safe while we do that. This is still going to be a very difficult winter. The NHS is going to be under pressure it is under pressure now. We have to all continue those really important things around social distancing, respiratory hygiene, the face space safe message that we all become so familiar with. It's really important that we don't throw away the gains of the last year when the light is now at the end of the tunnel. So on that I think we should hand over to journalists and I think first in line is Adrian Masters from ITV Wales. Hello Adrian. Hello thank you both. This question is directed at Dr Richardson but Dr Atherton if you want to jump in with more details afterwards please feel free and it's really to get a little bit more reassurance on the safety of this as you've both made clear it's in 10 months 10 years worth of work has been done on this. How robust have the tests and evaluations been? In other words if you can tell us more about the kind of tests and assessments that have been done that allow you to be able to say that it's safe because a lot of people will think 10 months when it should have taken 10 years I'm a bit worried about that. Thank you Adrian. So the reason why vaccines normally take so long to be developed hinges on several things. First of all funding so that manufacturers can look at developing the vaccine then volunteers for the various phases of trials that need to be gone through before approval. Also scientists for this vaccine I would say there is overwhelming goodwill to share and to learn from each other. The funding has not been a problem the volunteers have not been a problem and thank you to everybody in Wales who's participated and at the end of all those trials the process that occurs from that stage on is probably fairly standard and stringent safety checks are requested from the manufacturer. All kinds of aspects are looked at side effects, stability, storage and so on. So we know that this vaccine has had no less stringent scrutiny before public use than any other. It's really the front end functions that have taken less time. Thanks Adrian. Do you have another question? I do yes and which I think may be directed at you but again if Dr Richardson has anything to add then I'd be delighted to hear from you too and it really is a bit more about the priority list that you mentioned because the JCVI priority list fairly clearly puts care home residents right at the top in your list care home residents were third on the list so are you sticking to the JCVI priority list and if you're not is that because of storage problems? Yeah there are particular challenges around this this vaccine as you said it requires storage below minus 70 degrees C. There's a clear list of priorities within the JCVI guidance and all four nations are intending to follow that priority list and work down it. However that has to take into account operational concerns. It would be scandalous to waste the vaccine and not to use it wisely. So we are currently exploring ways in which we could try to get a vaccine to those residents of care homes. Certainly the health care staff and social care staff will be a very high priority and we're looking for ways to work around that but it is technically quite difficult to achieve that given that we have numerous care homes around the country and the model for delivery of this particular vaccine the Pfizer vaccine requires a small number of vaccination sites but you may want to say more about that. Yes I mean we will be prioritising those that we can safely deliver an effective vaccine to. At the very beginning in the first week of immunisation it will be bringing people to the vaccine and that will include care home staff and then as we learn more about the vaccine and we're all learning at a UK level then it's very much hoped that a mobile model can be developed so that we can safely deploy to care homes without putting care home residents at risk of bringing them to a centre unnecessarily. So just to be clear it'll go to hospitals first is that basically the situation? Hospitals and some mass vaccination sites yes. Thanks Adrian. Next question I think is from Dan Davis of BBC Wales. I thank you and again whoever is best placed to answer this please do but just picking up on vaccinating care home residents the health minister has said that in practice in terms of this stage we can't deliver the vaccine to care homes you've just said that eventually that will be the goal. Can you give us an idea of when care home residents will be able to get vaccinated? Yeah very much work in progress Dan. We are trying to find a work around on this. It is very difficult to provide the vaccine to numerous points of care homes. Initially as Jill says we will have to deliver the vaccine through a small number of sites. We are trying to find ways even with this vaccine to provide a more disseminated approach to distribution. There are of course other vaccines in the pipeline the Oxford vaccine for example which doesn't have such stringent requirements around temperature management and control and as that comes online as we hope that will give us a further ability to work our way through those priority lists. So I can't give you an exact date or a timeframe but we're working through that process as quickly as we can because those elderly residents usually elderly in care homes are one of our highest priorities and that's reflected in the JCVI guidance and it's certainly reflected in our ambition. So just to clarify Ben you said that people will be getting a letter inviting them to come to a specialist clinic to have vaccination. I take it from what you said that care home residents won't be getting one of those letters and if I could add as well will we know at what time scale you'll be working through the priority list so in other words when will people in Wales find out when it's their turn? Yeah well the first thing to say and I'll hand over to Jill but the first thing to say is that this is a massive undertaking we have never in the UK certainly my professional career and probably ever undertaken a mass vaccination programme of this nature where we're our ambition is to eventually reach the whole population that is clearly not going to happen overnight this is going to be well into next year before we get through this and that reflects the fact that we need to have access to stocks and of course the logistics of managing something on that scale are absolutely enormous so we will work our way through those priority lists. It's fantastic news that we're going to be able to be starting this as soon as next week but everything else depends on when we get stocks and how quickly we can start to roll it down but we're looking well into next year before the whole population is covered. Jill do you want to add anything to that? Yeah just to say that our care homes will be having a bespoke approach and each health board is working closely with their social care sector with their directors of social services and their care homes to make sure that whenever we can effectively and safely deploy vaccine to those residents we will. Thank you. I think Daniel Wilson is next, LBC. Thank you very much. You touched upon it in your opening statement and of course what everyone will want to know is if at all will this initial rollout make any dent in terms of the restrictions that people in Wales are living under for example it's widely expected that we could be back in it in a national lockdown in January after the Christmas period. Could we see some slightly looser restrictions that there may be what we would have thought? Well Daniel I must say I think that would be really unwise. You know I've said that we can't know yet whether the vaccine will reduce community transmission. We have a high degree of confidence it will reduce people's susceptibility and reduce the susceptibility particularly to serious disease but it would be really foolish for us to say at the moment you know we've got a vaccine it's back to business as normal. We really have to maintain those those measures which will keep us safe over the winter and as we work through that lengthy process of vaccinating and getting hopefully to the whole population. So for the foreseeable future I would say to you we have to maintain social distance we have to maintain face coverings where they're needed we have to maintain those respiratory hygiene measures that we've all become so familiar with. If we throw those away now we really will run into problems. Did you have a second question Daniel? Yes just on the immunisation cards we've heard a bit about them this morning a question to both of you whichever one is best place to answer it. We've heard a bit about the detail of what will be on those but you know will it in a sense be an ID card as well will people's names or photographs be on them and if so may we get to a point in the spring for example when we when we've had more of these rollouts where businesses could be refusing customers away if they can't prove that they've had this jab? Well I hadn't that one either to Jill. So the the issue of the cards and the record cards is one that's being worked through I would say at UK level at the moment and certainly because the vaccine is not compulsory we hope that people will come and have this extremely precious and significant commodity for free of their own volition but there's no compulsion. We are not anticipating in Wales that the hospitality sector will be turning people away. Thank you very much Mark sorry Daniel. I think the next is Mark Smith Wales online. That's great thank you very much both. This is probably more of a question for for Dr Richardson. There has been a lot of misinformation on social media this morning about the side effects of the Pfizer vaccine so would you be able to clarify what if any are the common side effects of the vaccine and are there certain age groups perhaps that are more susceptible to its side effects than others? Okay so as with any vaccine there are potential side effects. Usually they are you know sore arm occasionally raised temperature but usually you know very very serious side effects are extremely rare and we know from the studies with the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine that there are really good safety profiles and really good safety profiles for the elderly and for those that have clinical conditions so we're extremely pleased to be offering what we feel is a very safe vaccine to the Welsh population. Thank you very much and secondly this is probably a question for either of you. Would you be able to tell us how many jobs will be available to Mr and Wales before the end of this year and would you perhaps be able to tell us how many of the mass vaccination centres will need to be set up across Wales and do you know whether all health boards have sites earmarked for use? Okay so yes all health boards have sites earmarked for use and the distribution mechanisms are being finalised as we speak and it will be a vaccine that will arrive this side of Christmas and it will be administered as soon as we receive it in Wales. I cannot give you exact figures but it will be in large quantities. Once we start vaccinating we will be going at quite a pace. As long as supplies continue we will deploy them you know in a way that keeps pace with delivery. Thanks very much Mark and Andrew Nuttall of the leader. Thank you folks this question is probably best played for Dr Richardson so this vaccination is going to be a mammoth task you've already mentioned that previously but how will this state approach work in practice and how long do you anticipate before the vaccine is able to reach all groups across Wales and not just the priority ones? It is a mammoth task and I just want to pay tribute really to our chief pharmaceutical officer here in the Welsh Government and all the pharmaceutical colleagues including his assistant Lloyd Lloyd and all the heads of pharmacy. It really has been an incredible mammoth task to look at just the logistics and the distribution and storage and then every health board and trust has also been working in Wales to make sure that their plans encompass as many of those groups as possible, as early as possible. It will depend on supply and also it will depend on the MHRA approving the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and the Moderna vaccine so Wales will be having their fair share of both of those other vaccines as soon as they are approved and then we will really you know be looking to immunise even more than forecast now. Andrew, did you have a second question? Yes, this is probably a more general one that either of you could handle. You've touched upon the fact that the vaccine will not be the compulsory as which can't go around jabbing people without consent but what will you say to people that are sort of a little bit sceptical of a vaccination and are sort of thinking I won't take this or I don't need this? What will you say to people in that position? What I would say Andrew is we've got really good evidence now that the vaccine is safe and effective. We know that coronavirus is causing devastation across Wales, across the UK, across the world. Why wouldn't you have it? I'll certainly be you know having it when my time comes up to have it. Let's go to Tom Magner in Careers World. Thank you very much indeed to both of you. I've got two questions, one for each of you. So if I can come first to Dr Richardson, you've referred to vaccine priorities. You've mentioned a bespoke approach in Welsh care homes. Can I widen this out? Keeping in mind that 96% of care in the community across Wales is provided by unpaid carers and I mean unpaid carers are not care workers caused carers. Shouldn't unpaid carers be prioritised alongside paid health and social care workers rather than using what appears to be the blunt instrument of age because without unpaid carers being fit and well, caring in the community stands to collapse and the pressure on the NHS will inevitably increase. I'd be interested in your thoughts. Yes, I completely agree with you. Unpaid carers of which I am one are extremely important to the people they care for but also the whole of society. So I think that this is something also that the JCVI is very acutely aware of and it's probable that they will be making some announcements about carers and about them being accelerated if you like so that they wouldn't have to wait for their particular age group to be called and so expect further announcements on that and very much others are also thinking exactly the same. Thank you. Thank you for that encouraging reply and now Dr Atherton my second question to you. Before vaccines take hold you of course have got to maintain and try and keep control of COVID-19. It seems a lot of trust particularly in care homes is being put on introducing rapid lateral flow testing, the pregnancy type of device that I can call it now. The joint port and down Oxford University study suggests its performance appears to depend on who operates the test. I heard earlier that trained healthcare workers are likely to be the ones doing the testing and in the study that comes out of 73% effectiveness but it appears for example that young adult carers as students are going to be asked to self-test which is only 58% according to the study. How much can the public trust the thinking that appears heavily to rely on lateral flow testing? Yes, thanks Tom. We've been watching the development of lateral flow tests, the rapid tests very closely in Wales. Even two or three months ago the sensitivity and specificity of those tests was really very poor and I wouldn't have been recommending them to be used here in Wales. They've improved remarkably in that time so they are improving and always improving. At the moment those tests should be administered usually through somebody who's trained but the ultimate aim is to have them available to use for self-test so this is an evolving field. I think your question is right, we shouldn't rely on them completely in care homes to assure our safety. There's so many other things as you well know that we need to do to keep people safe, we need to make sure that PPE supplies are maintained, we need to make sure that people have access to the PCR testing when that's needed and required and we need to make sure that infection control measures are absolutely robust and we continually have to rise those times but to be honest with you I do see lateral flow tests as another tool in the box that we can deploy, we just need to be as you imply careful about how and where we deploy them. Thanks to that Tom. Joshua Searle from South Wales Argus. Afternoon, this first question is probably best directed for Dr Richardson. The health minister highlighted in the statement this morning that two sites have been identified to store the virus in Wales. Are you able to say where about those sites are and why they were chosen? Was distribution considered from those sites or was it purely about their ability to store such quantities of a virus at such a low temperature? Well I guess thank you, it's a mixture of factors really. You would not expect me probably to be saying exactly where sites are all over Wales but I can tell you that we have looked very carefully at all the storage parameters and also for ease of distribution so that we can actually get this vaccine out as swiftly as possible to the immunisers who will need it in each health board and trust. Thank you very much. The second question perhaps for Dr Atherton. Medical experts in Scotland have warned that they have significant concerns about the easing of restrictions for the Christmas period in terms of cases and possibly deaths as well. Do you share their concerns? Yeah absolutely and we talk across the four nations of chief medical officers regularly on this. The important principle here is that we have to go into the Christmas period with as lower prevalence as we can possibly achieve here in Wales and that's really the reason why ministers have decided this week to put some new restrictions in place in the run up to Christmas. Over the Christmas period itself there will be some relaxation. We've absolutely acknowledged that you know people need to be able to get together with their families and so the arrangements that have been agreed across all four nations for Christmas hopefully will allow people to do that but to do it safely you know it's important even though we are able to meet with our relatives our loved ones over Christmas that we try and maintain that social distance even if we're in the same house together that we try to make sure that we wash our hands regularly those things that we know keep ourselves safe so so there is some increased risk of course over the Christmas period we'll have to see where that takes us in January and we need to maintain our vigilance and our maintain those things which we know can keep keep ourselves and keep Wales safe. Thanks for that Joshua a really important point and finally Olivia Grist of Atrium News. Afternoon both. This first question is directed at Dr Richardson. So students have regularly been blamed for the spread of coronavirus but when it comes to this vaccination we seem to be at the bottom of the pile shouldn't the focus be on vaccinating those who are supposedly the biggest spread of the virus? Okay thank you Olivia. Yes I mean I think it's it's probably been very difficult if you're a student to be hearing that many people feel you know that you're responsible but for all of us really we would say that it's not a matter of age it's a matter of our proximity to each other how close we are can we space can we you know keep our hygiene and can we take those measures such as wearing a face covering where indicated where we cannot socially distance so I know many students that have actually taken great care to observe all of those and so in a sense I can sympathise with with your question however we know that those that are younger tend to have a milder often asymptomatic course of the of the virus and that also they are much less likely to have the need for hospital admission not exclusively obviously there are young people with health conditions and those will be part of the vaccination effort but at this stage we have only been in agreement at UK level and with the advisers the various regulatory and advising authorities such as JCVI we have been told that the plan is for everybody over 50 and I am sure that once that has been done then the whole thing will be looked at again to look at those younger age groups so thank you. Did you have a second question Olivia? Yeah I did yeah which is directed at you Dr Atherton so in absence of a vaccine this side of Christmas for students how can you reassure those in particular university students and international students who may be concerned that they won't have to go through the same isolation process when they come back after Christmas as they did this year. Yeah there's a lot of work going on you know with the all the universities who've done really a good job in here in Wales I think you know to put arrangements in place to try and support students it's not been easy as Jill says and you know particularly we've learnt a lot from the return of students to university in the autumn of this year so those lessons will inform the work that we're doing. Again we have some access to lateral flow tests we talked about a little bit earlier that may help us a little bit we need to make sure that all of us you know students as well as everybody else tries to keep their risk of transmission as low as possible through those same measures I've been talking about but I would I would hope that we can avoid a further wave of infection and a further wave of restrictions as students come back it may be that we might need to stagger those returns there's still a discussion going on with universities with the sector about all of that so the arrangements are being finalised but your point is well taken we need to find ways to safely allow students to return to their homes their family homes to spend Christmas and then to return back to to their learning environment and we continue to work on that. Thank you very much Olivia appreciate those questions so so that concludes really for today I just wanted to say finally really that you know we've been battling this virus now for the last 11 months it feels like a lot longer it's been pretty grim I know for many people in Wales it's been grim for all of us and it's been really fantastic today actually for Jill and myself to be able to spread a little bit of the good news you know it is a a flagship day in in many ways there's a huge way to go still there's a big battle in front of us not least in rolling out vaccine but you know in the meantime I'd like to just first of all thank the those majority of the Welsh public who've behaved so fantastically well and have helped to prevent the spread of coronavirus and I hope we will all be able to continue to do that over the winter period over the festive period so that we can stay safe get ourselves to a position where the vaccine can really hopefully make a difference to us and we can return to some form of normality. Diolch yn faw.