BETSI Cadwaladr University Health Board have asked for residents to be 'patient' as the rollout of the second Covid vaccine commences in North Wales.

The health board have received an initial delivery of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine this week and enhanced supplies of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.

Over the first two weeks of January 2021, priority groups for vaccination include: Care home residents and staff; People aged over 80, including hospital inpatients; High risk frontline healthcare staff; Primary care staff and Welsh Ambulance Service staff.

About 300 people aged over 80 will be vaccinated at mass vaccination centres and arrangements have been made to contact individuals manually by telephone. This is intended to test the system and capability prior to expanding the service week-by-week.

The health board were expecting to receive five trays of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine but on request, have been given seven trays which is equivalent to 8,050 doses based on six doses per vial.

A spokesperson for health board said: "During the early stages of the roll out, all health board plans were reviewed given the potential disruption to the supply chain of the Pfizer vaccine. Once this supply issue was resolved, we quickly adapted our plans in order to take receipt of additional vaccine trays at short notice. This created a short-term logistical challenge, but these issues have since been resolved.

"We want to reassure people across North Wales that we have a robust and well-considered plan to administer the vaccine to all of our priority groups as quickly and as safely as possible. Over the course of our Covid-19 vaccination programme, we will receive an allocation in proportion to the size of our priority population.

"We have commissioned significantly more mass vaccination centres and hospital vaccination centre sites than any other health board and have well developed plans in place to introduce local vaccination centres and mobile vaccination teams.

"Before Christmas, vaccinations for care home workers and high-risk frontline staff began from Ysbyty Enfys Bangor. As such, we are very well placed to accelerate our rollout of the vaccine, taking advantage of the greater volumes we expect to receive in the coming weeks.

"We continue to ask for people to be patient as we work through the priority groups, following national guidance."

On Tuesday, January 5, the Journal reported BCUHB will be using up to 19 mass vaccination centres, doctor’s surgeries, mobile immunisation teams and the military to increase roll-out of both Pfizer/BioNtech and newly approved Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccines.

So far six mass vaccination centres have been brought into play but others will open up as more doses of the jabs filter through.

A spokesperson for the health board added: "This week we will see a significant increase in our plans to roll the vaccine out across North Wales. We now have both the increased availability of vaccines as well as more staff and vaccination sites to help us reach more people, more quickly.

"We are also working on plans to involve primary care colleagues in delivering the vaccine, which will be particularly important given the large area we cover in North Wales. In addition to this, the military will also support the delivery of our vaccination programme from this week.

"To date, only a relatively small number of care home residents and those over 80 years of age have been vaccinated in North Wales. This will significantly increase with the newly announced arrival of the Oxford vaccine.

"Joint planning with local authorities will ensure priority delivery of this vaccine into care homes.

"This week we have 5,000 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine to vaccinate care home staff and residents, as well as hospital inpatients and those over the age of 80."

The arrival of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is intended to focus upon two cohorts initially, those aged over 80 who are inpatients across acute and community sites and care home residents. It is anticipated that about 650 inpatients will be vaccinated this week.

The intention is that a large number of over 80s will be vaccinated through primary care partnership working and mobile vaccination teams, predominantly through local vaccination centres and GP Practices.