All eligible islanders to be 'vaccinated by September'

Friday 08 January 2021

All eligible islanders will have been vaccinated against covid-19 by the start of September and all islanders over-50 given their first vaccine dose by the end of March, according to the Government.

Health Minister Deputy Richard Renouf said that from 18 January, the vaccination programme will reach the capacity to vaccinate 7,500 islanders a week, dependent on the amount of doses received by the UK.

He added that in total, 3,188 islanders have already received the first dose of the vaccine, with 11% of over-80s immunised.

Pictured: A breakdown of the vaccines given so far.

In a statement, the Minister said: “Yesterday the Competent Authorities Ministers endorsed the decision of the Medical Director to move to a 10-week period between two doses of the vaccine, as recommended by the MHRA, our regulator. 

Under this timeline, 49,000 Islanders will have received their first dose by 29 March, including all High-Risk Islanders.  

“By 12 July all 105,000 islanders will have received their first dose of the vaccine, with the second dose will be completed by 6 September.” 

Pictured: The island is currently on Tier 2 of its vaccination programme.

Express asked whether the Government had considered allowing GPs to administer vaccines to help speed up the vaccination process. In response, the Chief Minister emphasised that the island was already in a world-leading position with regards to vaccination.

He noted that there were many GPs already in the vaccination team, but that GPs were not employed by Jersey's health service, unlike in the UK where they fall under the NHS, before explaining that the process involved "careful control and record-keeping."

The medic leading Jersey's response to the pandemic, Dr Ivan Muscat, said that Jersey was currently receiving batches of vaccines at the same rate as the UK relative to population size. He said the island was prepared to deliver more vaccine "should it arrive" and would review its response accordingly, and that the ambition was to "provide as much protection as possible as soon as possible."

For now, he said the focus was on administering first doses - "the most protective dose" - as rapidly as possible. Describing it as "the most protective dose", he explained that it can provide up to 88% protection after three weeks.

The vaccination programme began in the island on 13 December, with elderly and vulnerable islanders in residential care being the first to receive the dose.

Pictured: The main vaccination centre is based at Fort Regent.

This tier was completed by 20 December, with all residents who were willing having been vaccinated.  

This was then followed by the opening of the vaccination centre at Fort Regent, with Tier 1b seeing the island’s residential and care staff given the vaccine beginning December 19.

The programme is currently on Tier 2, with over 2,000 over-80s registering to receive the vaccine.

Earlier this week, the Government denied that there was any ‘queue jumping’ involved in the administration of the vaccine, after it was revealed that 5 to 10 civil servants involved in the pandemic response had been vaccinated outside of the ‘age-based’ process due to their “prolonged exposure” to positive cases in their line of work.