Fy enw i'r fwyaf, a rhesiwch a'r wahanol periwyr, i chi i'r gael. Rwy'n fyddeni'n amser i chi i'w ddweud y Fyffordd Gweinwyr press brym 2021. 5 ddweud yw'r bwyllfa yw'r wych yn dweud, yng nghymru COVID-19 yma, mae'r bwysig yn rhywbeth yn y Unig. Fe oedau plant neu oedden nhw'r Axford AstraZeneca. Mae'n gwerth iawn o fynd ymgylsiau ac yn yr hyn o'r fanylach o mynd ymgylch â'r modd ac mae'n fân iawn. Rwy'n gweithio â'n cymhwynghau. Rwy'n gweithio gwneud â'r rhan o地 atdraffwyr hefyd. Rwy'n dweud yma eich cynllun sydd wedi bod yn ymgylch. The new highly infected strain of coronavirus, which was identified just before Christmas, is spreading quickly throughout Wales. Cases of the virus remain very high. As this slide that is appearing on our screen shows, rates have fallen back from the incredibly high levels we were seeing just before Christmas. The overall incident rate for Wales has fallen from a higher 636 cases per 100,000 people on December 17 to 446 cases today. Now, this is still far too high. There have been falls in most parts of Wales, except in north Wales, where we are seeing cases rise quickly. We believe that this is because of the new fast moving strain. It's too early to know if these falls are because of the Christmas period and fewer people coming forward for testing, or if there are early positive signs of a sustained slowing in this awful virus. We continue to be cautious though, because while the number of people being tested has fallen, the testing positivity rate remains very high at 25% across Wales. Our NHS continues to be under intense pressure and has experienced some very difficult days over the festive period. Those same pressures are being felt right across the UK at present. I want to thank everyone working in our health and care services across Wales. You continue to do an incredible job under the most trying and difficult of circumstances. There are now almost 2,700 people with coronavirus symptoms being cared for in Welsh hospitals. There are 208 patients in critical care today, more than half of whom have coronavirus. This is very close to peak that we experienced during the first wave in spring last year. Very sadly, we see an increase in the number of people who are dying after contracting coronavirus over the Christmas period. For all those families who are mourning the loss of a loved one, please know that our thoughts continue to be with you. Last year was one of the most difficult years that any of us will have experienced. The pandemic has felt at times that it would never end. The approval of the first vaccine in early December and the second just five days ago gives us a real hope for a better future and a brighter year ahead. We've been using the first vaccine, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, for just over three weeks now and have vaccinated more than 35,000 people. As we know, it's not the easiest vaccine to use because it has to be stored at ultra-low temperatures and can't be transported easily. We've been primarily vaccinating frontline health and care staff at the 14-mass vaccination centre set up by health boards around Wales. However, care home residents and over 80s have also had the Pfizer jab over the last few weeks. However, the new Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is a real game changer because it can be stored in a fridge and is much easier to transport. The UK Government invested in the research for this vaccine and has bought 100 million doses for the UK and Wales will receive our population share. Its approval will help us to speed up our vaccination programme and run more clinics closer to people's homes. We will also take the vaccine into every care home to complete the protection of care home residents and staff. We received the first supply of 22,000 doses of the Oxford vaccine and more will be coming. The first Oxford vaccines are being given today. Over the next couple of weeks, we will increase the number of max vaccination centres to 22 and more than 60 general practice surgeries will offer the Oxford vaccine. Mobile units will also be set up throughout Wales. We're training a range of health care workers to give the vaccine and we have plans to work with local pharmacists, dentists and optometrists to provide vaccination clinics. We will continue to use the Pfizer vaccine at the mass vaccination centres across Wales. We're working to the priority list agreed by the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation. The rest of the UK is working to the same priority list. The immediate priority is to vaccinate frontline health and care staff, care home residents and staff and people over the age of 18. This will help to protect our most vulnerable citizens and help to save the greatest number of lives. Everyone in these groups will be invited to come to a clinic for an appointment. Health boards and local authorities will be writing to everyone in Wales with more information about the vaccine in the coming days. Everyone will get two doses. The second dose will be given up to 12 weeks after the first dose in line with the latest advice from not just the JCVI but from all four chief medical officers from across the UK. These two vaccines offer us a path out of this pandemic, but it will take a huge effort and time to vaccinate everyone. We are not out of the woods yet. We all need to keep on taking steps to protect ourselves, our families and each other for some time yet, especially while cases of coronavirus remain so high. That means keeping the number of people we are close contact with to an absolute minimum. It means keeping our distance, washing our hands, wearing a face mask and working from home wherever we can. It means keeping ourselves safe and keeping Wales safe. Thank you very much. I will now take questions from journalists as always. The answers will be broadcast live on our social media channels. The first question today is from Owen Cart from BBC Wales. Yn anodd a blwyddyn nhw y dda Gwynidog iechyd, can I start off with the vaccine? Obviously the rollout of the Oxford vaccine is terribly encouraging news, but given I think many people watching will be asking once again, when could it be my term? There's been some criticism of the speed of the rollout of the Pfizer vaccine so far in Wales, and we understand the Department of Health in England has set a target, for example, for all care home residents to be vaccinated by the end of January. Will you set similar delivery targets for Wales, and if so, what are they? I think that the letter that will go to every household will provide people with a measure of assurance about the vaccine rollout and how they'll be contacted. So instead of a vacuum of information, that letter from our NHS and localities partners, I think will provide a large amount of reassurance. Once that letter starts to go, I think we'll make efforts to publish the broad text of that so people can see the information even though they haven't had their own hard copy yet. I am going to be not just attending and chairing some of the weekly vaccination programme board meetings here in Wales, but also I expect we'll be able to write a series of milestones so we'll be able to indicate when we're able to go to not just the numbers of people over, but when we do reach, for example, that's getting them to all our care home residents or to deal with all of our paramedics so people can see that we're working through sectors and doing so. I think that I'll be able to do that providing us milestones of achievement, but also an update, because every week we'll publish information on numbers and each week I want to give a better indication of how we're going through all those occupational groups. But I think we're going to reach at about the same time as every other UK nation, the completion of not just care home residents for people in the first categories, the first priorities that we're currently vaccinating. So I appreciate everyone has questions, but I think that people at the end of this will see that we have not been behind the pace and actually the significant acceleration that we'll see in the coming weeks will give people an even greater measure of confidence about the coming months ahead. Thank you, Diolch. You said in your opening comments that the number of cases in Wales continues to be far too high and you acknowledged the extreme pressure the NHS has been under over the Christmas and New Year period. Would keeping schools closed for now be justified if it helps protect the NHS? Well, it's of course a serious consideration for us. Now, the government's been really clear that closing schools is the last resort, and there's a difference between closing schools and no education takes place and moving learning to online. We also know that it's practically more difficult for young children, primary school-age children to learn online, and it makes people who still need to work from home that's a real challenge. And it's also primary school closures, or learning from home, the primary school issue and has a real impact on people being able to go to work. What we have said though, and we made this decision in December, we deliberately made a choice to have the first few weeks as a flexible opportunity to return before the expectation that people can be back in classrooms by the 18th of January. Now, that has meant that we've been able to learn more with the appearance of the new strain to try to get our plans right. And as the First Minister said yesterday, if the evidence changes, then we'll have to take account of that evidence and that may lead to a different choice. We're expecting updated advice from our own scientific and public health experts over the next few days. If we get that in later today, that may lead to a decision, we'll get that in tomorrow if that may lead to a decision. But once we're really clear, the deliberate choices we're making are always underpinned by evidence. Ministers act on that evidence, make choices, and as you'll know, we've been very open in not just sharing information with stakeholders when it's available, but in publishing information on a regular basis. So any choice we make will be underpinned by evidence, and we'll share that evidence with the wider public. Thank you, OI. I've now got Adrian Masters from ITV Wales. Thank you, Minister. Can I just pick up on your last answer and ask you to clarify, does that mean that you in the Welsh Government are rethinking your plans for schools and for a return to schools? It means we're doing what we said we'd always do, and we've always said we'll be guided by evidence, and I must have said in not just these briefings, but in countless other interviews, that if the evidence changes, then you have to be prepared to change your decision. But at this point in time, we're working with the evidence that we have, and we're looking to understand the updated and to expect to get in the next day or two from our own scientific experts and public health advisers. And of course, we made a choice in the last week of the December school term to move high school learning to distance learning, because we could see the evidence in front of us of a rising tide of infections and the impact that was having. So we acted promptly at that time, and that was difficult, a difficult choice for ministers with a difficult practical impact for parents, teachers, and of course learners as well. And within this, we're having to balance all of the different harms. We can't allow our NHS to be overwhelmed, because we know that we cause significant harm to not just people working in our health service, but people who need our health service. And frankly, within the wider country too as well, we also know that not having our schools operating causes harm to learners as well. So we've got to balance all of those different harms and all of the different challenges in making our choices, but it's a consistent picture that we will learn from the evidence, we'll take account of the advice in the hands we get and we'll then make choices. So it's exactly in line with what the First Minister said yesterday, and exactly in line with how we've behaved throughout this whole pandemic and trying to have a proper evidence-led approach to keep people safe in schools in the wider country. Thank you. And if I could go back to questions about the vaccine. When a person has been vaccinated, can they go back to behaving the way they did before the pandemic? No, it's really important that we understand that if you've had the vaccine, that it will give you a measure of protection. What we don't yet know though is if that means that you can't pass the vaccine on to other people. There are many other vulnerable people out there as well. You could give potentially coronavirus too. But it's actually the start of allowing us to be able to make more normal choices in the way that we behave in the months ahead. And we really are to work the months ahead to get significant coverage of the vaccine, not just to save lives in the interim for people who have had the vaccine, but to allow all of us to make different choices. And I'm just as keen as anyone else is to have a different way of living my life as well as everyone else in the country. These are extraordinary measures to live with. If we can't persuade all of us to make those choices work to reduce our context to limit the spread of the virus, then we will lose many more people on the road that lies ahead. And that's what's at risk for all of us. And this really is about protecting our NHS and saving lives whilst the hope is made real with the vaccine progressively being delivered to more and more people across the country. Thank you, Adrian. Now I've got Dan Bevel from LBC. Thank you very much, Health Minister. Good afternoon. I wonder if I can combine the two key topics today, vaccines and schools, my first question. The vaccine rolled out today, no-one would say that isn't good news. It's a vaccine that we've got a lot more doses of than the first Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that was rolled out initially. But with the schools issue keeping cropping up, it's something that we've seen since the start of this pandemic about whether schools are safe to reopen in the toughest restrictions. Surely an immunisation programme for teachers would help put that to bed and at least stop disruption from later probably into next school year. I think there are two points today in respect of your question, Dan. The first is about the safety of schools. And actually we have good evidence since a credit to teachers and education leaders and school support staff more generally. But our schools have been environments where learning has taken place and where we don't have evidence there's been transmission between pupils and staff. And that shows the control measures that have been put in place have been largely effective. And that is to the credit of people who are running our schools in the way that our learners have behaved as well. It's really though the larger concern about the impact of school opening on the transmission rate has been about the fact that it means that there are more opportunities for adults to mix. That's both some of the mixing in the school as a workplace itself. We've had some outbreaks where there's been a breakdown in social distancing. But it's actually about the reality that people who would otherwise be at home if children and young people are at home and not in a school are able to go out and mix whether they're adults. That's been the bigger concern from our scientific advisers about the impact on the transmission rate of how schools open or moving to distance learning. So it isn't about the safety of the school itself, it's about the broader impact on community transmission. And when it comes to vaccination priorities, as I've said in the written statement I've issued today, as you'll have heard today from Dr Gillian Richardson, who's a senior responsible officer in Wales for the vaccination programme, and as indeed is set out in the JCV advice endorsed by all four of our chief medical officers. We have a priority list because working through that priority would deal with a 99% of people who are most likely to pass away if they have coronavirus. So a priority list to save as many lives as possible. Now if we move any particular occupational group further up the list that means we'll de-prioritise a range of other people. Now if the evidence were to change about the risk factors for different occupations, well that would be about re-prioritising because the risk is available to people. But if we want to move anyone, whether it's police officers, teachers or taxi drivers, into different occupational groups, further up that list and that will have an impact on people who we know are at real risk of harm, including the people that we know are part of the more than three and a half thousand of us citizens who have lost their lives in this pandemic. So it's not a simpler saying fix the problem by changing the priority list. This is all about how we save lives within the unfinished pandemic that we are all living through. Thank you, health minister. And it's pretty clear from what you've just said there and also what health, excuse me, the first minister has said over the last couple of days that we're very likely to see an extension of the current restrictions, at least for another three weeks. And with that in mind, people are much more likely to follow those rules if they know there's light at the end of the tunnel. Do you agree with your UK government counterpart, Matt Hancock, who told LBC this morning that he's thinking that perhaps by Easter time there will begin to see signs of improvement that there could be some more normality? Well, I think it's not helpful to have an artificial deadline about when we can see a return to normality. You'll have heard previous figures from within the UK government indicate that coronavirus would be sent packing within 12 weeks, then substantial normality by Christmas, and all those things I think have generated an element of false hope and expectation. What I think we all need to concentrate on is that the pandemic is still with us, it is still very much here, that's where we all need to live, our lives in a way that reduces content for all of the harm, the pain and the frustration that causes, because that will keep more of us alive and well to be able to recover together. The second is there really is light at the end of the tunnel because we have two vaccines that are available. We'll see increasing numbers of those vaccines delivered over the coming weeks and months. More of us will be protected, protected from harm, and that in itself is in many ways the biggest factor in our normality to return. When we get to Easter though of course, Easter is taking place in spring and we know from the first period of time that as the weather starts to change, as it's more likely to be warm, as it's more likely to be dry, we're likely to have a different range of choices available to us, but I don't think we should set an artificial deadline within the period of the year when people can aim to do different things. It's really about us all pulling in the same direction because the more we can do together, the quicker we'll get out of this, the quicker we will have some return to normality. Thank you, Dan. I've now got Will Hayward from Wales Online. Thank you, Health Minister. Given that the new strain of the virus is prevalent enough in north Wales to still be driving rising infection numbers, have you considered a more local approach or travel restrictions to keep it contained and are these measures likely? There should be no need for travel restrictions because the current position with Wales at level 4 is a general stay at home requirement, not advice, not guidance, a requirement because that's what the law provides. So actually there are already travel restrictions in place because unless you're leaving work for essential purposes, as I have done today, those people who are essential workers go into health and care system or police services will back to central travel. Driving, for example, to a mountain in Sledonia or Penavanna or a beach in west Wales is not essential travel, is outside the rules and outside the current restrictions that the law has already provided for. So that's the position that we're in and actually the best way to reduce the spread of coronavirus, either the previous dominant strain or the new strain that has appeared within the UK from the southeast of England, likely first, is actually to do the right thing we've been asking people to do all through this. So it's about reducing your context to a minimum, about wearing a face mask when necessary, it's about washing your hands regularly, about not touching your face, about having good ventilation. All those things are effective control measures for the new strain as well. We need to follow that advice and guidance and do the right thing even more rigorously than before to avoid the harm that will otherwise be caused. Thank you. You've indicated that the Welsh Government is still keeping an open mind on schools given the information emerging about the new variant, but there isn't much time before schools go back. When are parents going to get some clarity on this? As soon as we're able to make a decision at the moment the plan is for schools where to open in a flexible way and that was a deliberate choice as I said earlier to Owen Clarke. We made a choice before the Christmas break to have this flexible approach to opening so we could learn and try to understand more of what is happening. Now if we get evidence and advice today then that's evidence advice we may well need to act upon today or tomorrow. We need to see the evidence of advice first rather than taking an approach that will lead I think to more panic and more lack of understanding. I think people want clarity but I also think most people understand that you have to have the evidence and advice you want to make a choice on and that's where the Government is. And as I've said when a decision is made you can expect to hear that from a Welsh Minister. You can also expect at a brief period of time afterwards to have the evidence and advice published as we have done throughout the pandemic and indeed that of course will be shared with stakeholders when we have something to share with them. And that's the way we'll need to do it.  Actually the biggest measure we can all take to help reduce the spread of the virus to ask ourselves am I doing the right thing not for someone else to do something or what can I do to play my part in helping to keep well safe. Thank you Will. I've now got Lidia Griffiths from S4C. Diolch yn fawr i'r gweithio i'ch hefyd penanda. I've spoken with frustrated gym owners who think it's unfair that they have to close their doors while fast food chains remain open for being classified as essential. UK activists say they're disappointed that gyms remain closed as the evidence remains that gyms continue to have a very low prevalence of COVID-19 in their facilities. Do you accept these points and when will the Welsh Government include gyms as essential businesses? Well I understand there are many sectors who will point to the fact that their area of activity makes a relatively modest contribution to the transmission rate. And at the start of this we're talking about the high coronavirus numbers, we're talking about the pressure on our NHS, we're talking about where there will need to take extraordinary measures to change the way that schools operate. It would be an unusual thing I think to open up other areas of activity while we're contemplating further restrictions because of the continuing impact of coronavirus within our communities. This is difficult for all of us and I really do understand why people who want to go to the gym, who recognise it's physical and mental health and wellbeing that gyms can provide. I understand why people who work in those gyms, who run those businesses, who are keen to get back. And I recognise that the sector has made great efforts to try to as COVID secure as possible. But we are in an unprecedented pandemic that has taken the lives of more than three and a half thousand of Welsh citizens. Around 2700 Welsh people in a hospital bed today, we are operating critical care at about 140% of its usual capacity. That's why extraordinary measures are being taken. And I hope that people, whether you own a gym or use one or not, but across the whole public will understand why these extraordinary measures are in place. They'll be in place for as long as they're needed to keep all of us safe. And that's the base upon which this government is acting. Diolch yn fawr. Over the weekend, North Wales police said that officers had to turn away people who had broken stay at home rules to walk up Snowden with similar incidents in the Brecon Beacons last week. Do you accept that people simply aren't following the government's rules anymore and will you be taking any further measures to tackle this? Well, actually the great majority of people are following the rules and are doing the right thing. And I'm very grateful to Evan across Wales who is doing that. It's really important that people see the value in doing that because I think lots of those people are deeply frustrated to see people plainly breaking the rules. And the rules and what's the right thing to do aren't the surprise now. You know, we've been in this position for the best part of ten months now. You know, when we went into level four, everybody, it would be very difficult to avoid the reality of what's happening and that meant stay at home. Not stay local, not take a half an hour drive to go to a beauty spot but to stay at home. So either the people that are doing the right thing are very frustrated with people who plainly aren't. And I too am deeply frustrated with people who are not doing the right thing and are finding a way to justify to themselves what they don't need to do the right thing. Well, the law is there in place for reasons to keep all of us safe and there are penalties for those people who break the rules. And actually if the police take a more enforcement heavy approach with people who are plainly doing the wrong thing and knowingly doing so, they will have the full support of Welsh Government Ministers in doing so because all of us need to play our part. And I cannot overstate my frustration with pictures of people who know they're doing the wrong thing but nevertheless doing so. We're in an unfinished global pandemic. Many of our people have already died and many more will do. We all have a responsibility to do the right thing. Thank you, Lady. I know that Adam Hale from the Press Association. Afternoon, Health Minister. Happy New Year to you. Have there been any instances of people in Wales who are not in the initial priority groups for vaccination? So people we wouldn't have expected to receive the job so far having already received a vaccination for any reason? Well, it's possible that there would have been mistaken instances of people who have got their vaccine ahead of their priority. But I'm assured from the concert I've had with not just Dr Richardson but more generally with the program that we are getting through the priority groups as we should do. I've heard and there's always a danger that an urban myth becomes a wider reality. But it may be the case that someone who works in an admin role in a health service has had the job when perhaps they shouldn't have done. But the priority is very clear. We're very clear that we're delivering the vaccine to the right people. And we want to accelerate that delivery, as I said, out in my briefing here today, but also in the written statement that I've issued for members of the Senate and the wider public. Thank you. What are the accusations you've faced as a government during the pandemic has been of passing a buck when it comes to certain decisions? People were listed to be in the summer in December when you were leaving up to people to make a decision whether they should see people over five days before that decision was changed. And now we've obviously got education unions saying they want a clear decision about the January return for schools and not needing to look authorities, the schools themselves. Is there a fear here? Is there a case that ministers are afraid of the government taking the blame if it issues firm instructions and then things go wrong? Well, there's a balance of choices that government ministers make all the time. I've appeared here on a very regular base of this briefing and many other interviews. The first minister has done more press interviews than any other first minister in a comfortable period of time. That's because of the extra pressure we're under, as indeed other ministers do as well. So we're accountable to the media. We regularly answer questions in a variety of formats. And the Senate has been sitting continually, remotely and in different ways in a hybrid format. But we've been available for scrutiny for all of the choices that we make. And even if we want it to hide and avoid responsibility, that simply isn't possible. And I think that Welsh ministers have been upfront about choices that we've made. We've been ready and available to be scrutinised. And that involves some very difficult choices. You'll recall, it wasn't that long ago, that we were facing very difficult questions about hospitality restrictions, whether there was a need. You'll recall the scrutiny about whether we needed to have the restrictions coming into place in north Wales at level four at the same pace as the rest of the country. We made those difficult choices. We were accountable for them. We were fronted up to explain what we were doing and why. I believe that we have got the grand scheme of the choices we've made to keep Wales right. And I believe that the people of Wales are responded positively to those choices. The safety of the people of Wales are overriding priority. That's the base upon which we make choices. That's where we look at the evidence. We'll continue to be how ministers behave as we play our part to help keep Wales safe. Thank you. I've now got Group of Evidence from ITN. Thank you, First Minister. You said at the start that there'd be an increase in the number of people dying as a result of contracting COVID over the Christmas period. What exactly, how do you define the Christmas period in terms of the data at the moment? One of the data that we got, I should say, on the health minister and not the First Minister, we had a contest to sort that out. The data that we can see is if you look at our continuing excess death rates you'll see that our excess death rates are at a very uncomfortably high level. You'll also see in the statement that I provided to the Senate in the recall sitting that we're seeing more people who are leaving critical care because they've passed away not because they've recovered compared to earlier periods. About from people who have been admitted from September onwards into critical care we've seen about 40% of those people dying within hospital. We know that that's carrying on with the figures that we're seeing where hospital is still the place where most people die. That's why we're asking people to think in about what they're doing. This isn't a virus where people jump up and everything is fine after a few days. The scale of transmission means that more vulnerable people are coming into our hospitals. That's why bed pressures are so high. If you were asking me in a normal winter, what was our position on the levels of extremity we have? If we had critical care running at 140% of capacity in a normal winter you'd be asking me how the NHS could cope. We're doing this with other pressures that exist through winter. We're doing this at a time where nearly 2,700 beds are being used to care for people with an illness, a disease, a harm that wasn't here last January. This is normally the busiest time for our national health. This is normally the time we see a significant influx of people coming in to our hospitals in the weekend after the new year. We're doing all of this at a time where we have such tremendous demand and pressure on our services directly from the pandemic. Looking at the Christmas period, I've spoken with people who give you the evidence that you repeatedly talk about in terms of acting on the evidence. They are concerned, but one of two things. One is that you're just not paying attention to it. As a result, they were telling you two and a half weeks before Christmas you need to lock down and you didn't. Now, of course, we've got the increase in deaths that people expected. The other, and perhaps this is even more concerning, is their worry that the evidence that they're giving to you is being watered down.  Whichever way you look at it, that has got to be concerning, hasn't it? I can't deal with an anonymous I've told to people and told me things. What we do though is we're very clear about lots of decisions we've made, but we regularly publish the advice we're getting. We've done that from early on in the pandemic. One of the choices I made with the support of the rest of the government that published a weekly summary of the scientific evidence and advice we're getting. As I say, when I was doing these preff briefings, when we chose to close down and have additional restriction measures in hospitality, and we then made the choice to have non-essential retail restrictions before Christmas, the chorus then wasn't you're doing too much or whether you're not doing enough. You're doing too much. And we published the evidence that underpinned the choice made at each point in time. I think we're being entirely transparent about the evidence we get. And we then, from the advice, ministers then have to decide. So I'm a decision maker, the first minister is a decision maker, other ministers are decision makers, but the advice we get is crucial in the choices that we make. We'll continue to be transparent in publishing our evidence. And I recognise there are people with different opinions, different views on the evidence available to us. But I believe we are being consistent in moving with the consensus of advice we get from public health experts and our scientific advisers on what we're doing. And that will continue to be the approach that we take. Thank you. I've now got Steve Bagnell from The Daily Post. Thank you, Health Minister, and happy new year. Returning to the vaccine rollout. I appreciate you said the aim is to wrap up the numbers, getting vaccinated in the coming weeks. In Wales millions will need to get it, and as you say, it's going to take time. Do you have a target you want to get to, say, for example, 100,000 or 150,000 vaccinated per week? And when could that happen by? No, and I think this is difficult because I understand why there's pressure to have numbers. I understand why there's a pressure to say, tell us when we'll get to a certain point in time. But we're still building up an entirely new process. We've only had three and a bit weeks to go through this already. We have got plans, and in the written statement I've published today and in the briefing I've given as well, it does indicate we're expanding significantly the access. That will mean we can deliver many more vaccines to people across the country. I've also indicated we'll publish some milestones in terms of achievements, so when we're getting to the point of completing our care home delivery, we'll confirm when that is. And when we get to completing different occupational groups, we'll confirm when that is as well. So we will be transparent together with the weekly update on the vaccination numbers that we've got. But this is still so new. I think it's really important to report honestly where we are in the programme to give that indication because I think we do much more harm if you gain an artificial plucking a figure out of the air and we then didn't achieve that. It wouldn't be that there's been tremendous success in getting 99,000 people vaccinated in a certain week. It would understand that we've been painted a failure not to get an extra thousand now. That's why I think it's important to go at the maximum pace possible to protect as many people as quickly as possible because that is the biggest factor in allowing us to return to more normal choices that I know many of us are looking forward to within this year. Thank you, Health Minister. Following the lockdown and tier four measures, some areas have seen drops in cases, but others, as you've mentioned, particularly North Wales, are seeing rates increase. Does this mean with the new more virulent strain of Covid and if cases continue to rise, the lockdown will inevitably have to be extended into February and possibly beyond? Well, we can't know just yet what sort of decisions we'll need to make for February. As the First Minister has indicated, as I've said today as well, I think it would be unusual and not what people should expect for us to decide to come out of level four at the end of this week. We'll then need to do what we've always done in reviewing the evidence on transmission, the evidence that will certainly gather and come to us on the impact of the new variant, and we'll then need to understand where we are with the public because in many ways the biggest facts in our path out of this are the choices that we all make. If people are still mixing, going into each other's houses and having social calls indoors, and that will make a big difference to transmission rates staying high and the pressure on our national health service, if more and more of us do the right thing, then we know that that will help to reduce pressure faster than if that doesn't happen. So that's the place where we all need to be to play our part in keeping Wales safe and that is the quickest route out of the position that we find ourselves in. We also of course haven't seen the direct impact yet in our figures from any of the mixing that would have taken place over Christmas or indeed those people that went outside the rules and the advice we've gave over new years. So we still have some bumpy periods of time to get over in the next few weeks. That's again why we ask people to think again about what we all do to keep ourselves and each other safe to protect our NHS and to save lives. Thank you, Steve. I've now got Rob Taylor from rexham.com. Good afternoon. Rexham now is the second worst seven-day roll in the United Kingdom. You said earlier the rise could be due to the new variant. Can you expand on what information you've seen that points to that and what makes rexham Flintshire particularly susceptible to that variant compared to other areas that are seeing a downward trend? Well, the susceptibility is about where the new variant is. It's then about transmission within the community and because it's a more aggressive, faster spreading variant than what our scientists call the wild variant, then that's the reason why it spreads, and actually the danger is that once it's seeded everywhere, it could eventually become the dominant strain as it appears to be in the whole of the east of England. That's not just London and the southeast, but East England too as well. So this really is about us understanding and tracking where it is, and it's because we know more about north Wales because of where some of those Lighthouse Lab samples get sent. They're getting sent too as a regular matter, of course.  We can test for the change in the structure that allows us to understand if it's the new variant. We aren't completely sure of the picture in south Wales, so that's why Public Health Wales are working with colleagues in England to make sure we have a representative group south Wales to understand how far the new variant has spread. When we publish our scientific update, the regular weekly update that we have been through the pandemic, I expect we'll be able to show more detail and I hope we'll try to map within that to show where we've got confirmed instances of cases, and I do think that will show a significant scene across north Wales, some in south Wales, but I'd say the caution up there is that we think that the south Wales picture is an understatement, it's a more accurate picture of what we think is happening within the north. Thank you. You said earlier if the police take a more enforcement heavy approach than they'd have Welsh Government support. Does that point to you thinking they should skip the engage, explain and encourage the enforcement power to their strategy? Well, look, if someone has driven from view Maris to go down to Toen, then actually that's a long journey. If that is a journey for pleasure, that is outside of the rules, exercise is supposed to be starting and ending at your own home, either on foot or on a bank. Now, there are limited exceptions, but people have decided to dress them and go for a walk up a mountain. Well, I think those people know they're doing the wrong thing. And my view is that we need to support the police in taking enforcement measures and I think the educating enforcement has been important in getting people to understand why this is happening, but 10 months deep into a pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 3,500 people in our country, I have a great deal less tolerance of people who are knowingly doing the wrong thing. And I think, actually, Rob, you'll find that your readers, those of whom are doing the right thing, will have a lot less tolerance of people who are plainly not doing the right thing. Thank you. I've now got Thomas Moody from the South Wales Office. Good afternoon, Minister. Are there any further plans for mass testing in the worst affected areas in Wales? We've got a significant mass testing programme. Actually, the challenge isn't about increasing our testing infrastructure, really. It's about getting people to use the tests we have available. In the run-up to Christmas, we saw a significant number of people getting themselves tested. I think it's easy to understand why. We were seeing very high case rates across the majority of the country, in particular the southern belt and the western belt of the country. We also know that there were some people who were particularly concerned about getting symptoms checked before Christmas. So we think all those things that have very, very high numbers of people getting tested, we've now seen a significant reduction compared to that number of people getting tested. I think on today's figures it was 11,000 or 12,000 people who got tested. Actually, on other days we had, you know, nearly double that number of people getting tested before Christmas. So there's plenty of capacity within our system. We want to encourage people who have got symptoms to get yourself tested as soon as you have symptoms, isolate as soon as you have symptoms and follow the advice on isolating and on reducing contacts with other people, ending contacts with other people, because that's one of the key control measures for us and our scientific advice and public health experts regularly tell us self-isolation is very important and highly effective to reducing the spread of the virus. So get tested early, follow the advice, self-isolate immediately on having symptoms. Thank you. Can you give more details on the number of Pfizer vaccines which are currently available in Wales and how the Welsh Government is planning on scaling up the number of vaccines, both vaccines currently available over the coming weeks and months? OK, so we have our population share. I don't have in my head the exact figure of Pfizer vaccines available this week, but we think it's in the tens of thousands. The Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, we should get around about 40,000 over the next two weeks and over 22,000 that have been delivered to Wales already, ready for vaccination to start from today from the rest this week. Now, we are expecting production and availability of the Oxford vaccine to be increased more significantly through February and beyond. And that also leads us being able to scale up our programme significantly as well. You'll have heard from Jill Richardson, who of course is the former director of public health in the Gwent area, talk about the fact that the limiting fact for the next two weeks is actually the availability of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. So we'll vaccinate many more people over the next two weeks and then through February, we'll expect to see another further step up and the number of vaccinations that are taking place. My understanding is there's likely to be a dip in the supply of the Pfizer vaccine at a period of time in the future, but we'll still be able to protect the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. Thank you, Thomas. I've now got Tom Magnff and Kara's world. Thank you very much indeed, Health Minister. About a week ago, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation changed the priority list to include carers who are in receipt of Kara's allowance or who are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person whose welfare may be at risk if the carer contracted COVID-19. And they appear to put them in priority six. There are still four bands below frontline health and social care workers. So, please, can you clarify exactly where unpaid carers are now on the Welsh Government list? And do you think it's good enough if your answer is band six? Are viewers certainly don't think it is? Well, as I've said before, Tom, all four nations are following the advice of the JCVI. It's been endorsed by all four chief medical officers and it is about understanding the relative risks for people and understanding how I can protect as many people as possible. And you have heard earlier that there have been calls for different occupational groups to be moved up. And the risk is that if we move those up, then actually band six becomes further deprioritised. So it's a difficult battle to understand why people will make a case for the group that they belong to and understanding that will have an impact on other people. It's not saying that there are reasonable arguments about how important different groups of people are, but this is about trying to reduce harm, trying to protect as many lives as possible. And that underpins the advice that the JCVI have given. Can I just examine that in the light of the consultation on a carers national plan for Wales? It speaks of unpaid carers as an informal workforce. We'll leave aside our viewers being angry at being called informal. But is it not possible to view unpaid carers as a workforce alongside paid care workers? And would you accept that's the best approach really? Well, our frontline health and care workers if we were to say that unpaid carers are the same risk categories people work in an emergency department or a critical care unit, the evidence doesn't bear that out. And actually the evidence of the risk that people who are undertaking that activity within our health service have lots of harm caused by those people, lots of people self-isolating and it's a big factor by the so much pressure on the service because about one in ten of our health care staff are out to the workplace at present because largely because of COVID related reasons much higher than normal sickness absence rates. And so that underpins why they are further up the list and then you'll understand of course as well the very clear medical evidence that every decade additional age provides greater risk that's why people of the age of 80 are in that top priority list and we'll go through that in accordance with the advice. I know this isn't always what people want to hear but it's really important to be honest with people and even when that's delivering news and decisions that not everyone would like to hear we're doing this on a basis that is underpinned by the medical advice underpinned by the public health advice on how we protect as many people as possible how we keep as many of us as alive as alive as possible in the weeks, months and years ahead and that really does underpin the choices we've made throughout the pandemic how do we keep people safe how do we keep people alive how are the best possible recovery and this year will be a year that we can look forward to with a much greater sense of optimism difficult months ahead but definitely a better future in 2021 Thanks for your time and questions Tom and thank you everybody I will see you soon, no doubt.


So, lots and lots of people have heard about the concepts of win-win and win-lose. Win-win negotiation is where both parties walk away from the negotiating table, feeling that they gained something, maybe not everything that they wanted, but they gained enough so that they're satisfied with the solution. This model comes to us from gifted scholars and practitioners, Roger Fisher, Bill Urie, and Bruce Patton, and they developed what they called principled negotiation, ways of developing a negotiating framework that will lead to lasting solutions. Their principles are to separate the parties from the problem. Quite often, we focus on how angry we are at the other person or the other group. We're just angry at them and we don't want to see them win anything because we're angry at them, but actually what you're trying to do is resolve the problem that both of you have. So if you can put your anger aside and just focus on the problem, this will allow you to see your options more clearly. So they say, separate the people from the problem. Focus on the interests, not the positions. Focus on the underlying reasons why this is a problem, not the immediate reasons why you say you're fighting. And see if you can satisfy those underlying reasons for fighting. See if you can satisfy your interests, not your positions, not necessarily your positions. Their third principle is to generate options to think about different ways that this conflict can be resolved. Don't get stuck around a solution that's not working. Try to bring in other ideas. Reach out to other people who have had similar problems to see whether they have a solution that might work for you. Find an objective standard to legitimize the agreement. This is reaching outside to verify that the agreement that you have reached has worked for other people. And finally, understand your baton, understand your best alternative to a negotiated agreement and understand the baton of your negotiating partner.


exercise to do now. Easy and straightforward exercise doesn't. You don't have to do a lot of things this way. You just need to find out which of the statement is incorrect. So don't try and answer the whole expected values. Read the question. It says only the expected cell for youth and girls. So it means you need to be calculating the expected value for this. What you need to also realize with this table is there is no total. So you must calculate the total first for the table. Then calculate youth and girls expected value. So you will say the row total multiplied by column total divided by n. So which your n will be the grand total. And then option number two is asking you. What is the null hypothesis? You know what the null hypothesis always has to state. Is this the correct way of stating the null hypothesis? For the alternative, is this the correct way of stating the the alternative hypothesis? Remember you need to also do the degrees of freedom. Your degrees of freedom is number of rows minus one times number of columns minus one. Yes. So you need to answer that one. And then you need to do chi-square test distribution. Is it asymmetrical? Remember when we look at the table on the chi-square, it looks like this. So if you go to the graph that they drew for the chi-square table, does it look like a symmetric? Mine looks symmetrical in this way that I've drawn it. Let's change it. So this is how chi-square looks like. Is it asymmetrical? The tail goes to the left, to the right. Is it asymmetrical? This is a chi-square distribution. Is it a symmetrical distribution? And you need to say that. Okay. So that is your exercise. I will come back in one to do the feedback. Hey, I gave you more extra more minutes because I thought you might take longer. Did you calculate the totals? What is the total for girls? It's 78. 70? 78. Total for boys? 122. 122. And then the grand total will be 8 plus is 10. 38. 200.  I just want the total for youth. Total for youth? 38. It's 38. So to answer number one, row total times column total divided by n. What is the row total? 78. Our column total? 38 divided by 200. What do you get? 14.82. It's 14.82, which means this is correct. Number two, it says the null hypothesis states that gender and magazine preference are independent. Is this correct? Yes. It is correct because always in your null hypothesis, it should state that independent. Then for it means for the alternative, it will say the opposite. In this instance, it says alternative is dependent. Is this correct? Yes. Yes, because it's the opposite of independent. The degrees of freedom, how many rows do we have? Over two rows. We have two rows minus one and how many columns do we have? Four columns. Four minus one. Two minus one is one and four minus one is three. Three times one is three. Three. And for it means that is correct, which leaves us with the last one. The chi-square distribution is symmetric. It cannot be symmetric because it has an extending tail to the right, which makes this incorrect. A chi-square distribution, it is a positively skewed distribution, or it is skewed to the right. That is your chi-square. That's easy, right? To answer some of the chi-square questions. So now comes your assignment questions, which I can So this is a contingency table with fake news media and personality. Asking you to calculate the expected frequency for social media and politician. Asking you to calculate as well the expected frequency and traditional, the expected frequencies for traditional media and sports stars. They also asking you what is the observed frequency for traditional media and politician. Then, number four, they're asking you what is the null hypothesis. And number five, they're asking you are there two degrees of freedom. So you need to calculate the degrees of freedom for that one. So remember how to calculate the expected value, the row total times column total divided by n. Your degrees of freedom is given by row number of rows minus one and number of columns minus one. I'm going to give you five minutes for that question. But if you are done, please don't wait long.  So we can do, there are more questions as well. I am done. Are you still busy or are you just going to listen to what we are telling you? I think going forward, I'm going to ask individual to, we are six in this. So every time we have a question, all six of us who are here excluding me, okay, all six of you who are here in, let me not say us, all six of you who are here in this session, you will at least give me an answer for each one of the questions. So I hope you are ready. Whether it's right or wrong, remember we want to help you understand if you are lost. Masa, do you agree? Any guests, do you agree? I know that same always talk. I don't know about the others. I'm waiting for Masa and Rebecca and Mavitella to show me that they agree. Yes, we do. We don't have a choice here. Yes, Rebecca, yes. Masa, are you with us? Mavitella, are you with us? There we go. Yes, yeah, all of you, you are in. Okay, so let's do, we'll start with this one. There are five questions. So the other one will do the same. You are excused from answering this question. Okay, who wants to do with number one? The expected frequency for social media and politician? I'll do number one. Okay, let's give the ladies first. Let's do it that way. So since I can't see who's speaking, who wants to go? Was it you, Ne? Yes, ma'am. What was Rebecca? Oh, it was Rebecca. So Rebecca number one. Okay, the expected frequency. So I took the 3015 multiplied by the 1050. It's a social media and politician divided by 4,000. And I got 791.44. And therefore, number one is correct. Correct, yes. Okay, and Oscar, number two? Yes. I took the 985 times it by 665, the sports star, divided by 4,000. Then I got 163.75625, which are round off. It comes to 163.76. Which makes number two correct. That's it. Thank you. Who's taking number three? Masa, Ambitia and Ne. Masa, number three. What is the observed frequency for traditional media and politician? I got 258 points. Remember, the observed frequency is the value they give you. It's the value they give you in the table. It's your joint value for politician and traditional media, where they both meet, that's the value. Which one is that? It's 350, yes, it's correct. You're saying it's 350. Yes. There we go. Ambitia, number four? Ambitia, I don't know your full name. I can only call you by the name I see on the screen. Okay, Ne, you want to go for that number four? Okay, the null hypothesis, it can't be dependent, it's independent, so that one's wrong. That one is incorrect. And we were looking for the incorrect answer. But just for interest sake, the degrees of freedom is equal to two. Our number of rows have two minus one. And our number of columns, one, two, three, they are with three. Therefore, that would have been correct as well. So, there is one person in this group who went silent on us. Okay, continuing. Also, I'm going to give you five more minutes as well. They're asking you to confirm if any of this statement is correct in terms of the critical values. We didn't do this question. I will deal with that just now when we do the answer as well. But for now, what you are expected to do is see if the critical value, so you go and find critical value of zero comma one zero and the degrees of freedom. So what is your degrees of freedom from here? We calculated the degrees of freedom before, which we found that was two. So you're going to go and find the critical value for each one of this statement in order for you to find out which one is incorrect. When you are done, say you are done so that you know that you have expected all of this. Five more minutes. So, I'm done. Okay, are we all done? I had only one person saying done the rest. Are you guys done? Talk to me. I'm not done. Still struggling with the table. Are you still busy? Are you guys still busy? I am. Done, ma'am. Okay, I'm going to help that lady who said they are struggling with the table. So we're going to show you how to do the critical value for number one. So it says it's 10 percent and we need the degrees of freedom. Remember, you're going to ignore that part. So our alpha is zero comma one zero. So which is that one? Our degrees of freedom is two. So for all of them, the degrees of freedom will always be two. So you just need to alternate for every one of them. So for that two will be four comma six zero six. You see how to use the table. Okay, sorry ma'am. So how do we determine the two? How do we get two? The two-week. We got it because we also calculated it from the previous question. Remember, the previous question was asking there are two degrees of freedom. This is a continuation and how you calculated degrees of freedom. You found the two. So you just use the degrees of freedom and alpha for every one of them. Okay, I got you. Thank you. Okay, while you got me right there, what is for number two? At five percent, that will be at zero comma zero five. So you need to find your car square at zero comma zero five and then the degrees of freedom of two. So you need to look for zero comma zero five. Okay. So in two, so it will be that five point nine nine one. So that means option number two is also correct. Correct is. Option two is correct. And who wants to check option three, which is two point five. What is two point five? Two point five is zero point two five. Zero point zero two five. Option three is correct ma'am. Option three will be correct. And then option four, which is zero point zero one. That one's also correct ma'am. She is nine point two one zero. So all of them are following one another. Is that one? So which leaves us with one final question, which says, which says as the level of, as the level of significance increase or decreases, the critical values decreases. So if we look at all these values, so our level of significance, which is that if it decreases, so if it moves from zero comma one to zero comma zero one, it's decreasing. That's the, that's also the critical value decrease or increase. It increased. The critical value increases because the answer you can see from the table here, it shows we started with the four point six zero six zero five. We ended up with nine point two one zero. So it increased from four to nine. So that means this will be option number five will be the incorrect option. So I think now we're going to almost the last bit of the questions, which will be the last one. So this one you can do on your own. You will need to go and calculate the chi-square test. So it means the first thing you need to do here is to go and calculate the expected value for every value that is on there. For one thousand eight hundred seven hundred five one five four eight five three five zero and one five zero. You will need to go and calculate the expected value for all of them. So you calculate the expected value and once you have calculated the expected value you can calculate the chi-square, oh sorry I must make this a presentation mode so that I can write. So you will need to calculate the expected value, which is the row total multiplied by column column total divided by your n. And when you're done you can then calculate your chi-square test. You will do that. Then once you've done that you can answer the following question, which is almost the same it's related.  So another thing is you need to look at the statement because with the statement they say we reject the null hypothesis, we do not reject the null hypothesis, media, platform and personality are independent. What else they didn't give you with this question is the information about the alpha. I am sure I took everything, everything else. So if I go to the question, sorry because I think I didn't copy everything from the question, but you will look at your assignment question and answer that. Let's see. So the question was just question 20 just as you consider the below statement, we reject the null hypothesis, we don't reject the null hypothesis, media, platform and this, but you need more information than that. So if they didn't give you enough information to reject, I don't know how you're going to find that you are going to reject the null hypothesis unless if you're going to use all the test statistics or the critical values that they gave you, which is 10, 5, 2.1 and 1 to see if all of them, when you calculate the test statistic, do you reject the null hypothesis or not? So based on that information, you can come here and say, are you rejecting the null hypothesis and not rejecting the null hypothesis and you will need to state which one of those statements are correct or incorrect and those will be the last questions. Any question, any question. If there are no questions, it is 10 2. Thank you. I have this one last exercise to you. Let's see if you can do it in five minutes. So I'm giving you up until to do this last exercise and then 52 will recap and conclude. Come on guys. How many of you have done only one person? Okay. Do you want to give us the answer? And then we recap and conclude. Chi square test was calculated and that is and that was the answer for that chi square test. It was 18.50. Assuming that there is a five degrees freedom of five degrees of freedom, which one of the statement is incorrect. So it means you're going to also do the same as what we did with the previous one. Go and look at the table for your critical value. So the first one you're going to look at the critical value for 1%. So if the critical value for 1% is it equal to that or for 5% is it equal to that or for 10% is it equal to that? And once you have found those critical values for those, then you can determine especially for 1% whether are you rejecting the null hypothesis or for 5% are you rejecting the null hypothesis. So you need to find the incorrect one. You are done. So it means you went and found the critical values. So what is the critical value for 1%? 15.086 is right. So this is correct. And for 5%? 11.071 is correct. So that is correct. For 10%? 9.236 is correct. So that is correct. So now since we know all this, so we're going to say for 1%, if this is our region of rejection created by the critical value of 15.086, where is 13.05? 13.05 falls inside the air and it falls in the do not reject area. And the statement here it says HO can be rejected at 1.5. Therefore, this is the incorrect statement. If we look at number 5, it says our critical value is 11.079. So if we put 11.09 here, 11.071 here, our 18.5 will fall somewhere inside a rejection area. And therefore, H0 will be rejected at that point. So which makes statement number 4 the incorrect one. So you need to know how to find the critical value and how to use your critical value and your cost statistics to make a decision. And with that, it concludes what we did today. So today we discussed how to apply the cost square for independence. Remember, in your module, you only do cost square for independence where we use the contingency table. If in the contingency table, they didn't calculate their total to quickly calculate the total because then the possibilities are you will be required to use the total to calculate the expected value. And we use those expected values to calculate the test statistics because the test statistic is your observed minus the sum of your observed minus your expected square divided by your expected. To find the critical, to find the critical value, we use alpha because we only have one side of the rejection area. So we just use alpha and the degrees of freedom. And remember, our degrees of freedom is number of rows minus one times number of columns minus one. And when you have your critical value, then you are able to clearly define where your region of rejection will be. And you will use the test statistic and your critical value to make your decision. And that's all what we've done today with cost square testing. So by the end of today's session, you are able to complete your assignment three and submit it. Please make sure that you submit it when in advance because if you wait for the you wait for Friday, things might happen. So please go through your assignment. If you have any issues, remember you have the WhatsApp group to discuss. You have my UNISA to go through and discuss. Otherwise, thank you for coming. I will see you on Friday when we do linear regression. Then after that, every Saturday and every Friday, we're going to do exam preparation. Therefore, it means the majority of things that we're going to be doing on Fridays and Saturdays, I will post them on my UNISA as online assessment. We are going to go through those online assessments when we do the exam preparations. I will try and find as many questions as possible from the past exam paper and post them as online assessment. So every week before you come to class, you will have to go through that online assessment. Not this coming Friday, but from coming on, not the coming Saturday, the coming Saturday, we will do the exam prep like in recap. So we'll go through what we have covered so far, refresh our minds, look at how the composition of the past exam papers looked like, how you're going to write your exam, we're going to iron out all those things. Then the following weeks, proceeding to that one, we are going to do the assessment. Every week is assessment. So it means every Friday, when you come to class, you should have already completed the online assessment. We're going to do those activities in class. We're going to get the answers because I realized that on my UNICEF doesn't give you the answers when you answer the online assessments, but we're going to go through them in class. So it means by the time we finish with all exam preparations, you would have answered all the past exam papers that I could get access to. Then you would have answered most of the questions. In case UNICEF decides to repeat one of the past exam papers, you would have answered all of them. So it should not be a problem and it will give you time to practice and practice and practice. So every week, there will be an assessment linked to the activities that we're going to be doing on every Friday and every Saturday. There will only be one assessment for that week. And then the following week, we cover the other assessments. And then the following week, we cover the other assessments. So every week, it will be an assessment day. And with that, thank you guys for coming. And I will post the recording online tomorrow. Actually, because today I'm very busy. Thanks for the question. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you.


This week, we are in the upper river region of the Gambia where there's been one confirmed case of COVID-19. Together with the Ministry of Health and volunteers from the Gambia Red Cross and other partners, we've embarked on a campaign to sensitize border communities on COVID-19 and to promote good hygiene practices. Now, the Gambia's land borders are completely surrounded by Senegal. In fact, two kilometers behind us is already Senegal. So, though official border crossings are closed at the moment between the two countries, there's a long history of fluid and porous borders and vibrant cross-border trade. So, we're here to engage community leaders, religious leaders, women's and youth groups who can really shape the level of understanding in the community on COVID-19. And we hope to replicate this campaign in the coming weeks in all the regions of the Gambia and hope to reach over 100 border communities nationwide.


Okay, so this one says the pH of a 0.30 molar solution of a weak base is 10.66. What is the Kb of the base? Okay, so this is the information that was provided to us, let's attempt to solve this problem. So the first thing you want to do is be able to write the reaction equation for this problem. So what we're going to be doing here, of course, is an ice table so we can set that up right now. We have the original concentration of the base, 0.30. It's a weak base, so Kb is going to be very small, so we're going to be able to do the 5% rule this time. So let's just calculate everything else, at least as far as the ice table is concerned. So we have 0.30 minus x, so we have 0 and 0 starting now, so it's going to be plus x, plus x, so x, and x like that. So, if you recall, Kb is going to be the equilibrium constant of this reaction here. So let's go ahead and actually write out the expression for Kb. So Kb equals the products raised to their coefficients, Hb plus, that's the concentration of OH minus, divided by the reactants raised to their coefficients, divided by B. So is everybody okay with what we've done so far? Yes. Wonderful. I like that. So, 5% rule says we can wipe out that minus x there. The other thing is we have a pH value here, okay? So that's going to kind of, remember if we look at this reaction equation, this is the only thing that's going on in our solution, right? Is everybody okay with that? It's the only reaction. So out of all of these things, the only thing that's going to contribute to the pH raising or lowering is this hydroxide ions right here. So we can actually figure out what x is straight away, okay? So that's how we're going to have to do this. So remember pH, pH equation, negative log of the hydronium ion concentration, like that. So the hydronium ion concentration is 10 to the negative 10.66 like that. I get 2.19 times 10 to the negative 11 mole, okay? So that's for the hydronium ion concentration. So remember the KW expression is the hydronium ion concentration times the hydroxide ion concentration, right? And that's what we're looking for. Does everybody understand that? We're looking for that hydroxide ion concentration. So we can, good morning. So we can reframe this equation to solve for hydroxide ion concentration, which will be effectively solving for x. So we can do that, KW divided by hydronium ion concentration, like that. Remember KW is a constant, 0.0 times 10 to the negative 14. That'll be given to you. You don't have to memorize it. So 1.0 times 10 to the negative 14 divided by 2.19 times 10 to the negative 14. Times 10 to the negative 11. I give us our hydroxide ion concentration. I get 4.57 times 10 to the negative 4th molar for the hydroxide ion concentration. Okay? So we can think about that being x, right? So that means that's the same number, right? Because x equals x, right? So if that equals x, then that must equal that, too. Okay? So is everybody okay with me just erasing those two x's and putting that concentration value in there for it? 4.57 times 10 to the negative 4. 5.7 times 10 to the negative 4. Like that. So let's go back to KB. So this is what we're solving for. Remember, this is x. This is x. And we've got that from our original concentration. 4.57 times 10 to the negative 4. Times 4.57 times 10 to the negative 4. If you wanted to just say squared, you could do that. Divided by 0.30. Like that. So I'm just going to write out what I just said. So 4.57 times 10 to the negative 4. Square divided by 0.30. It's going to give you a KB. Okay? So let's do that all together. So square that answer and divide it by 0.30. And this is going to be two sick things, right? So there's a missed number here. So what do I get? 7.0 times 10 to the negative 7. Is everybody okay with doing that type of a problem? Any questions on that one?


Patient blood banishment has been another one of the programs that we've really done a lot of work with, and we're very fortunate to have some tremendous clinicians at the helm of that work, and they have, frankly, brought forth a platform of conversation that we were not having. Patients that are transfused during the course of surgery tend to have higher rates of post-operative infections, so it's important to transfuse only when there's defined benefit. We went on this journey of a six-point plan of improving our blood management. We leverage our electronic information systems to try to make sure that physicians, when they're ordering transfusions, are doing it according to the best available evidence, and if they're using it against the best available evidence, our electronic systems will alert them and that they're deviating from best practices. Over the last five years, we've seen about 100,000 unit less being transfused, which translates to about ten and a half million dollars worth of savings and blood purchases. There's other savings that are more difficult to put a price tag on, such as reductions in infection rates. And we have applied this strategy even when we're talking about patients who refuse blood. The Jehovah's Witnesses are very unique in the fact that they do not accept red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, or plasma. We really had to learn a lot about the Jehovah's Witnesses in order to build a program that would support their personal choices. And then, frankly, had the wisdom through our clinical leadership to say, well, if it works for this group of people, why wouldn't it work for this group of people? Frankly, it's the same thing. Blood's not good unless you need it. You don't realize that until you do take care of the Jehovah's Witnesses is that you can take care of them and they do quite well without those transfusions.