Three quarters of care home residents now fully vaccinated

Thursday 28 January 2021

More than three quarters of care home residents in Jersey have now been fully vaccinated against covid-19, and three in five staff members, according to statistics released today.

The Government's latest update on vaccination figures show that 86% (890) of Jersey’s care home population have received their first dose, and 76% (785) have received their second.

The new statistics, showing vaccinations up until 24 January, also show that 74% (3748) of over-80s have now received their first dose, with 11% (540) having received their second.

Pictured: The latest vaccination figures show that nearly three quarters of over-80s have received the first vaccination dose.

Similarly, 75% (1050) of care home staff have received their first dose of the vaccine, with 60% (840) having received their second.

Jersey currently receives 0.16% of the Pfizer vaccine from the UK and 0.18% of the Oxford Astrazeneca Vaccine from the UK supply chain, receiving updates on amount available every two weeks.

Some islanders have called for the vaccination statistics to be released daily, like other jurisdictions.

Pictured: The statistics note that due to the ever-changing nature of care home residencies, the population total fluctuates with time.

Jersey's data is currently produced with a lag of four days, which the Government says it due to data quality checks and the time taken to manually enter data after mobile vaccination units complete their rounds each day.

However, officials said they are looking at speeding up the process of releasing data.

The team said they are also working to provide vaccination data based on priority tier.

Jersey's tier system follows the prioritisation set by the UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. Vaccinations are now open to over-75s, and bookings will be open to extremely clinically vulnerable high risk islanders on 1 February, followed by anyone aged 70-74 from 6 February.

The current vaccination priority list...

Vaccine Programme Lead, Becky Sherrington said: “I am so proud of how far the vaccination team has come since we administered the first vaccine 6 weeks ago. The protection the vaccines offer is significant to those whose lives are at risk to this awful virus.

"The defence they now have offers them a chance to regain that independence and, once public health guidance advises, social connection which is so important for wellbeing.

“We have given out more than 11,000 doses which is a significant operational success and shows our model for vaccinating has proven to be as efficient and robust as we had planned.

“Our targets continue to be dependent on the supply of the vaccine, which is our main limiting factor.

"However, our capacity and ability to vaccinate all over 50s by the end of March still stands which is a testament to the hard work, motivation and passion of our vaccination staff and everyone in Jersey who helps get the vaccines from the UK.”

The Programme Lead also explained that: 

"We are vaccinating Islanders at the same rate as the UK is vaccinating its population. By Sunday 24 January we had vaccinated 74% of over-80s and 86% of care home residents with their first doses. In all we had vaccinated 10.56% of Jersey’s population.

"Our rate of vaccination is dependent on how many doses we receive, not on the staff we have available. We have enough staff to use the doses we receive from the UK, and if we receive more doses, we can increase capacity.  Our current target - to vaccinate those over the age of 50 by the end of March - is still on track."

Pictured: Vaccination Programme Lead, Becky Sherrington, emphasised that the main limiting factor to targets was the supply of the vaccine.

The Minister for Health and Social Services, Deputy Richard Renouf said: “It is extremely encouraging to see the progress made and I urge those who have been vaccinated to continue following public health guidance.

"Our Island’s health care staff are working incredibly hard to deliver this vaccine programme, day in and day out to protect lives.

"We can all continue to protect each other at this time by adhering to current guidance and in turn, show respect to the hard work of our vaccination teams, hospital staff and community staff during this pandemic."