Over 200,000 Covid vaccine jabs administered in North Wales so far but just 136 on Sunday

Just under a quarter of all vaccines administered so far Wales have been in North Wales, however just 136 were administered yesterday.

Data released today by Public Health Wales shows that 862,248 first dose of either the Oxford AstraZeneca or Pfizer BioNtech vaccines have been issued across Wales.

Of that 202,321 have been administered by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.

New data released by the health board today shows a breakdown of doses:

• Older adult, care home residents: 4,326
• Care home workers: 9,357
• Those aged 80 year of age and over: 37,753
• Health care workers: 21,314
• Social care workers: 7,253
• All those 75 years of age and over: 30,093
• All those 70 years of age and over: 40,629
• High risk adults under 70 years of age: 14,372
• All those 65 years of age and over: 22,987
• “Other” (All North Wales residents under the age of 65 not included in the priority groups shown above): 13,154

Last week also saw the health board start to administer the second dose of Pfizer vaccines to frontline health care staff, staff at residential homes and social care staff.

A more precise geographic breakdown is also published, with a per-county breakdown given out: Anglesey: 22,547, Gwynedd: 34,583, Conwy: 39,263, Denbighshire: 30,562, Flintshire: 37,745, Wrexham: 32,394, Other: 5,227.

Although an exact breakdown of this figures hasn’t been released, data published by Public Health Wales today shows that across Wales 42,725 people have now received their second coronavirus vaccine.

Yesterday saw a significant slowdown of doses carried out in North Wales, with health board data showing that just 136 were administered across the entire of North Wales.

We asked why this was the case, and spokesperson for Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board referenced back to an update published on the 18 February.

The update says: “As has been announced at a Wales-wide level, the supplies of vaccine available to all health boards for the next fortnight is lower than what we have been receiving.

“This is due to production levels centrally. This week BCUHB will receive a total of 23,430 vaccines (10,530 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 12,900 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine). Most of our Pfizer vaccine supply will be used to administer second doses.

“In addition to providing second doses, we have made a positive start to vaccinating people in priority group 5, with over a third of people aged 65-69 having received their first dose of the vaccine, and more people booked in over the coming days.

“We now have vaccine supply data four weeks in advance and this helps us to plan ahead. According to the supplies that we expect to receive, we should be in a position to start vaccinating priority group 6 (individuals aged 16-64 with underlying health conditions) in March.”

Speaking a week ago Health Minister Vaughan Gething said that there are ‘planned’ vaccine shortage supplies, which at the time were expected to last for the next two weeks.

Last week he said: “We expect when we get back into March we’re going to see a return to increased levels of vaccination supply available to us.

“That will mean we will be able to stand up all of those arrangements, as well, they’ve been making greater use of local pharmacy as well, because we’ve yet to maximise our ability and our capacity to to deliver vaccinations across Wales.

“So we can go even faster if we have the supply in place and if we have the certainty of the future supply, that’s why the next two weeks are not something that I think people should be overly concerned about, you’ll still see tens of thousands of people vaccinated each week, but will then return to an even more significant upswing after that.

“Again, that’s why we can have some confidence, I think that we’ll get to everyone in groups one to nine by the end of April, if supply lines remain as we expect.”