MORE THAN 238,000 people in the Republic of Ireland have now received their first dose of a Covid vaccine, representing 5.02% of the population.

As of 23 February, a total of 238,841 first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines have been administered in the State.

134,439 second doses have been administered, representing 2.82% of the population.

The figures are published with a two-day lag.

After focusing on frontline healthcare workers and staff and residents of care homes, Ireland’s vaccine programme ramped up in recent weeks to include people aged over 85.

The progress in the five days up to Tuesday was:

• Friday: 8,831 first doses, 5,923 second doses
• Saturday: 5,169 first doses, 3,517 second doses
• Sunday: 911 first doses, 1,004 second doses.
• Monday: 3,539 first doses, 902 second doses.
• Tuesday: 12,075 first doses, 701 second doses.

The vast majority (87.2%) of the vaccines administered were the Pfizer-BioNTech jab, followed by AstraZeneca (11.3%), and Moderna (1.5%).

Yesterday the HSE confirmed that a ‘vaccine effect’ has been observed in healthcare settings and care homes, with a sharp fall in infections over recent days as large numbers of staff are fully inoculated.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Health is to ask the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) to consider whether family carers could be included in one of the vaccine groups currently being reviewed.

The estimate that 5% of the people have received their first dose is based on the 2016 Census, frequently used by health officials when calculating figures like these.

A more recent estimate of the population from the CSO would place this figure at 4.80% of the population.

In Northern Ireland, a total of 491,593 people have received their first dose of a Covid vaccine (25.96% of the population) as of 24 February, and 31,637 have received their second dose (1.67%).

More details to follow.