People with learning disabilities and unpaid carers put in Covid vaccine priority group

Credit: PA Images

The Welsh Government says people with learning disabilities and unpaid carers have been put into a Covid vaccine priority group.

It means that people with learning disabilities and unpaid carers are currently placed in to priority group six to receive a dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

The priority list by Public Health Wales is as follows:

  • Residents in a care home for older adults and their carers;

  • All those 80 years of age and over and frontline health and social care workers;

  • All those 75 years of age and over;

  • All those 70 years of age and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals;

  • All those 65 years of age and over;

  • All individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality;

  • All those 60 years of age and over;

  • All those 55 years of age and over;

  • All those 50 years of age and over.

More than 860,000 people in Wales have so far received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

Credit: PA Images

Earlier this month, Wales reached its first key milestone of offering a coronavirus vaccine to everyone in its first four priority groups.

Dr Chris Jones, Wales’ Deputy Chief Medical Officer, says that whilst the vaccination programme has been "progressing remarkably well", Wales is "still quite a long way off having the people who are most vulnerable vaccinated with two doses."

A Welsh Government spokesperson said "The Joint Committee on vaccination and Immunisation (JVCI) recommended that people with severe and profound learning disability should be vaccinated in the current priority group (cohort 6). 

"That language is rarely used in Wales where we use a social model of disability and our preference is for inclusion over exclusion for this group of the population to ensure no one in this group is missed or left behind.

"People have already started to receive invitations for a vaccine, including those living in supported accommodation. Others will do so over the weeks ahead.”