COVID-19 clinically vulnerable persons (FOI)

Request

COVID-19 Clinically Vulnerable People vaccinated or unvaccinated at this stage of the vaccination programme, as at 01 July 2021. The intent of these questions is to establish as far as possible the number of people in Jersey who still have a heightened risk of severe illness or death from COVID as at 01 July 2021.

A

How many people in Jersey over the age of 17 are currently undergoing chemotherapy for some form of cancer, including those who are between courses of treatment? (Since this is a snapshot as at 1 July, please do not include those that are about to start a course of treatment)

B

How many people in Jersey over the age of 17 have recently completed a course of chemotherapy for some form of cancer, who are assessed as still having a compromised immune system?

C

How many people in Jersey over the age of 17 are assessed as very possibly having a compromised immune system for a reason unrelated to chemotherapy; ie such items as HIV, bone marrow transplants, current pregnancy, other immunosuppressive drugs and so on?

D

How many people in Jersey over the age of 17 are assessed as being medically unable to receive any form of COVID vaccination (excluding those listed in A to C above).

E

How many people in Jersey over the age of 17, (excluding those listed in A to D above) who having already received two vaccine doses, are still assessed as being at ‘moderate risk’ or more from the following vaccination cohorts:

• clinically extremely vulnerable age 16-69 years?

• age 65 and over, including the older cohorts (PG two, three and five)

• clinically at risk

F

Noting that vaccination group PG four includes 16 -69 years, how many people in Jersey aged 16 and 17, are considered at present to be clinically at risk or more?

G

How many people in Jersey aged up to their 18th birthday are considered to be clinically extremely vulnerable or clinically at risk from COVID-19 (excluding any 16 and 17 child included in F above)?

H

If it is felt that addition contextual information, caveats and statements of limitation are required, please supply these under this paragraph. Please explain any double counting.

Response

A to H 

The information as requested is not held in a format for the purpose of Freedom of Information. It has been assessed that any information held would be on individual patient records and the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 does not require a Scheduled Public Authority to manipulate data in order to provide a response. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 therefore applies. It is estimated that to interrogate these records would far exceed the time limits prescribed under Regulation therefore Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has also been applied.

However, information is publicly available on www.gov.je which provides, on page 5, a table listing the size of priority groups/tiers for vaccination as at 15 August 2021. Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

Vaccine Priority Report 150821 (gov.je)

Articles applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a) it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b) it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

Article 23 - Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.