“The UK Government has procured Covid-19 vaccines on behalf of the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories and is committed to continue to providing a proportionate supply in line with roll out of the vaccine in the UK,” the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon said.
Speaking during yesterday’s [Feb 22] session in the British Parliament, Lord Ahmad said, “The UK Government has procured Covid-19 vaccines on behalf of the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories and is committed to continue to providing a proportionate supply in line with roll out of the vaccine in the UK.
“The governments of the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories are responsible for the coordination of their own vaccination programmes. This includes setting their own frameworks for prioritisation based on demographics and their wider public health strategies. The Crown Dependencies have been supplied vaccine directly by Public Health England: details of their vaccination programmes, including up-to-date statistics on number of doses administered, can be found at gov.im, gov.je and gov.gg.
“The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office [FCDO] has been coordinating the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines to the Overseas Territories with the support of the Department of Health and Social Care, the Vaccines Taskforce, Ministry of Defence and Public Health England.
“Deliveries to the inhabited Overseas Territories began on 5 January and as of 15 February, the FCDO has organised 16 vaccine deliveries to 10 Overseas Territories to support their individual vaccination programmes for priority groups, with further deliveries scheduled over coming weeks in line with Territories’ vaccination plans. Planning is also underway to deliver vaccines to the two outstanding inhabited Territories: Tristan da Cunha and the Pitcairn Islands.
- Ascension Island: deliveries began 15 February
- Anguilla: deliveries began 4 February
- Bermuda: deliveries began 8 January.
- British Virgin Islands: deliveries began 4 February
- Cayman Islands: deliveries began 5 January
- Falkland Islands: deliveries began 1 February
- Gibraltar: deliveries began 9 January
- Montserrat: deliveries began 3 February
- Pitcairn Islands: delivery being arranged
- St Helena: deliveries began 11 January
- Tristan da Cunha: delivery being arranged
- Turks and Caicos Islands: deliveries began 7 January
Bermuda’s first batch of 9,750 doses arrived on January 8th, the second allotment of 19,500 doses arrived on January 29th, and Governor Rena Lalgie recently confirmed that the next batch of Covid-19 vaccines are scheduled to arrive in Bermuda in the first week of March.
