Vaccine update week commencing 18th January 2021

Monday 18th January

Across our Health Board we have now vaccinated a total of 25,877 people.

Residents from 72 of the 95 care homes for older adults within the health board area have been offered the vaccination, with staff in 90% of our older adult care homes being offered the vaccine. We have vaccinated 7,777 80 years and over and 6,500+ frontline health staff.

Read more about our vaccination news in this week's Vaccination Update Newsletter.

Last week we saw the opening of vaccination centres in Ebbw Vale and Abergavenny, which means there are now 4 vaccination centres open across the five boroughs. A vaccination centre will open on Monday this week in Newport which will be open 7 days a week, dependent on vaccine supply. All of our vaccination centres are appointment only and people will be contacted if they are being called for their appointment.

This week we have a planned vaccine supply of 24,000. 72 GP Practices across the Health Board area will start vaccinating those 80 years and over. By the end of this week we will have opened 5 vaccination centres, one in each borough.

Please remember that we are following the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) priority groups and have plans in place to vaccinate the top two priority groups in the first instance:

1. Residents in a Care Home for older adults and their carers
2. Aged 80 years and older, plus frontline Health and Social Care workers

From this week, those that fall within the third priority group; 3. All those aged 75 years and over, will start to receive invite letters for their vaccine. Please be assured that if you are aged 80 and over, and haven’t yet received an invite for your vaccine, you will be invited over the next couple of weeks.

If you receive an appointment, please do everything you can to attend as we are vaccinating thousands of people every week. Vaccine supplies are limited, the supply of the frozen vaccine, Pfizer is more certain but we can only offer that in our larger vaccination centres at the moment. By offering the vaccine through GP practices and across our Health Board area we are doing our utmost to reduce travel time and we appreciate everyone attending their appointment.

We continue to develop our booking centre process and call centre and plan to increase capacity as supplies increase. This means we can improve the service we offer as we have noticed the lines can get very busy at times.

We will continue to keep you updated, however due to a number of variable factors, such as the supply of vaccine, allocated plans can change at short notice.

We want to thank you for your continued support and together we will help keep Gwent safe.

Public Health Wales publish daily vaccination figures on their website: Rapid COVID-19 virology - Public - Public Health Wales Health Protection | Tableau Public  

For further information and FAQs on the delivery, eligibility and safety of the vaccine, please visit: About the vaccine - Public Health Wales (nhs.wales)