5-11 year olds in Wales will be offered Covid jabs says Health Minister

Health Minister Eluned Morgan has confirmed that 5-11-year-olds in Wales will be offered Covid jabs.

Speaking in the Senedd, she said that she was waiting for the go-ahead from the government’s vaccines watchdog, the JCVI, which she believed was imminent.

“Just in terms of the timetable for five to 11-year-olds, we’re obviously waiting for that formal advice to come from the JCVI. I’m not quite sure what’s holding it up,” she said.

“We know that it’s available, and it’s important that we are able to forge ahead with our plans.

“Obviously, we thought that that might be coming our way, so a huge amount of preparation work has already been undertaken, but we can’t really press the button finally on it until we have the final JCVI publication that we’re hoping to see imminently.”

She was answering a question from Bridgend MP Sarah Murphy who said that her constituents were “very keen” on an answer to the question.

She added: “I welcome the Welsh Government’s stance on taking a sensible, evidence-led approach to relaxing COVID restrictions, because, as the Minister has already said, COVID has not gone away and it can still be really unpredictable.

“I am particularly grateful to be in Wales, as myself and many others have been throughout the pandemic, where the self-isolation rules will remain in place. Does the Minister agree with me that it is far more sensible to relax the rules gradually than taking the rash approach of Boris Johnson’s Government in Westminster, which seems to be led not by the science but by the polls?”

Eluned Morgan added: “I’m pleased to say that we have tried, throughout this pandemic, to take that evidence-based approach, which was why we were slightly blindsided by the UK Government making an announcement that they clearly hadn’t discussed with almost anyone in terms of stopping self-isolation.

“So, it is a shame that we get to that situation, and it’s pretty obvious that it’s a distraction technique from the very difficult situation that Johnson finds himself in at the moment politically.”