LAST UPDATE | May 9th 2021, 3:56 PM

IRELAND’S VACCINE ROLLOUT has broken its record for vaccinations administered in a single day for the second day running, at over 52,000 jabs done on Friday.

There were a total of 52,278 doses administered on Friday.

Of these, 38,011 were first doses, bringing the total number of first doses administered to 1,305,178.

A total of 14,267 were second doses, now bringing the number of people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to 494,012.

A total of 1,799,190 doses have been administered so far in the rollout, with The Journal reporting yesterday that it would be possible for the government to hit 80% first doses by the first week of July.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said that the HSE expects to have administered around 230,000 vaccines this week.

Of the types of vaccines administered so far:

• 1,233,160 have been Pfizer/BioNTech
• 477,394 have been AstraZeneca
• 88,499 have been Moderna
• 137 have been Janssen

Speaking on RTÉ after he received his jab, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that the HSE are expecting that between 250,000 and 270,000 doses of vaccine will be administered next week.

On RTÉ’s This Week, Donnelly says that target of 450,000 vaccines being administered per week is expected to be hit in June.

“It’ll be a combination of the vaccination centres, we’ve 38 of those, the GP’s who’ve been doing a fantastic job. I want to see a more prominent role as well for the pharmacists. They’re really eager to get involved and I think the Janssen vaccine, in particular, will be one where they’ll be able to get stuck in very quickly.”

On whether or not the HSE will be administering Janssen vaccines to people between the age of 45 and 50, as reported by the Sunday Times today, Donnelly said that the Department of Health is currently working with the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) on that.

Donnelly says that they may potentially have an excess of vaccines, which they don’t want, so there is a period of time where offering Janssen vaccines to those under 50 would be possible.

According to Donnelly, he will continue to work with the Department and NIAC on the issue and hopes to bring a recommendation to the government next week.

Hospitalisations

As of 8am this morning, there are 116 patients with confirmed cases of Covid-19 being treated in hospital. There were 11 admissions in the last 24 hours, with three discharges.

However, it should be noted that many hospitals do not discharge patients at the same rate over the weekend.

In ICU, there are 31 patients receiving treatment as of 11:30 this morning. There have been no additional admissions to ICU in the last 24 hours, with one discharge.

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