Health Correspondent
Community vaccination against Covid-19 will begin in mid-February, subject
to regulatory approval, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said.
He said Ireland will receive vaccine delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine at
the lower end of the expected range for February.
The delivery in March is likely to be considerably lower than stated by the
company.
Community vaccination will begin with those aged 85 years and older,
followed by 80-84, 75-79 and 70-74.
Mr Donnelly said: "The next stage of our vaccine programme will begin with
those aged 85 years and older and will be administered initially through GPs
in their surgeries.
"The HSE is preparing a public information campaign that will provide all
necessary details in advance and ensure that everyone knows when, where and
how to access their vaccine.
"In the meantime, completing vaccinations for those most vulnerable to
Covid-19 infection remains the priority. Every possible nursing home
resident has already received one dose and some have received second doses.
"Healthcare workers are also a priority. Second doses will be administered
over the coming weeks to 77,000 healthcare workers.
"We will continue to roll out first and second doses to our remaining
frontline healthcare workers during February."
The HSE has said that due to outbreaks of Covid-19, four long term care
facilities were not included in the first series of vaccinations on public
health advice, with around 120 not completely done due to active outbreaks.
It said these will be revisited at the appropriate time.
The HSE said that where at all possible to do so safely, all residents and
staff were vaccinated.
Those residents and staff who were unable to receive a first dose will be
included once deemed safe to do so.
Last week the HSE began to administer second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech
vaccine for the first time.
It said that second doses will be administered in 27 nursing homes this
week, including to staff.
Meanwhile, over 70 doctors responded to a call by Cork University Hospital
at the weekend to redeploy to its intensive care unit to deal with the surge
in Covid-19 cases.
Chief Operations Officer for South/Southwest Hospital Group Dr Orla Healy
said that while the situation is being managed, the preference would be to
have qualified ICU nurses at the appropriate ratio of one per bed, but this
is currently not possible.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Dr Healy said it has been exceptionally
busy across all hospitals in the group, but Covid-19 has put particular
pressure on CUH, which struggled to recruit nurses prior to the pandemic.
In Northern Ireland, 17 further deaths of people with Covid-19 have been
recorded, 12 occurring during the past 24 hours.
It takes the official death toll there to 1,747. There are 828 confirmed
coronavirus patients in hospital, with 74 in ICU - 50 of whom are on
ventilators.
Call over vaccination plan
A consultant psychiatrist at the Mater Hospital has said every hospital ward
"is now a Covid ward ... and all interactions in hospitals need to be seen
as high risk at this point in time".
Dr Matthew Sadlier, who is also a member of the IMO's Consultant Committee,
has called for a transparent vaccination plan.
Speaking on the same programme, he said its unacceptable that many
frontline healthcare workers who have face-to-face patient contacts will
have to wait until they receive their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Dr Sadlier said there should have been a definitive list of workers in every
hospital and in every service to ensure that those frontline workers were
prioritised once the vaccine arrived.
He said there was always going to be a shortfall, given the numbers of
vaccine doses delivered, but those most at risk should have been
prioritised.
Website:
www.rte.ie/news <http://www.rte.ie/news>
For further information please visit the HSE COVID page at:
www.hse.ie/covid19
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