LAST UPDATE | 19 Jan 2021

EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you all the news you need to know as you start the day.

1. #PLANS: GPS and pharmacists are to be paid almost €91 million to vaccinate 1.5 million people under a plan to be considered by the Cabinet. 

2. #HOSPITALS: We’re into our surge ICU capacity in hospitals – here’s what that means. 

3. #SCHOOLS: Doubt has been cast over special education classes returning to schools in two days’ time, after public-health specialists tried to reassure teachers at a webinar yesterday.

4. #COVID: China and the World Health Organization could have acted faster to avert catastrophe during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, a panel of independent experts has concluded. 

5. #VACCINES: Two family members of staff at the Rotunda Hospital received Covid-19 vaccines which it says would have been wasted otherwise.

6. #NI: Hospitals across Northern Ireland will come under “intense pressure” across the next seven days, the NI health minister has said.

7. #TRAVEL: US President-elect Joe Biden’s spokeswoman discussed Trump’s announcement that a Covid-19 travel ban would be lifted. 

8. #WARNING: Gardaí have become aware of a Covid-19 vaccine scam which is targeting elderly people.  

9. #TENNIS: Three new coronavirus cases hit the Australian Open’s troubled build-up as a backlash grew against international tennis players flown in during the pandemic.