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HEALTH MINISTER STEPHEN Donnelly has announced an acceleration of the country’s vaccination programme.
The new plan means that those in nursing homes, as well as mental health and disability residential centres, should receive the jab sooner than expected.
Donnelly said: “By the end of this week, our plan is to have given over 40,000 vaccines to frontline healthcare workers and nursing home staff and residents, the plan is on target.”
“We had planned to vaccinate all 75,000 residents and staff with the first dose of the vaccine by the end of January. We’re now accelerating this plan to finish earlier, meaning that the first dose will be given to all residents and staff in the next two weeks.”
The HSE is now mobilising 65 vaccination teams including hospital vaccinators, community vaccinators, school vaccinators and the National Ambulance Service. Vaccinations which will take place seven days a week.
“We’ve decided to use some of our one week buffer as our supply of vaccines has been constant and we’ve received solid reassurance from Pfizer that this will continue to be the case.”
“Speed is of the essence and this is especially true for the most vulnerable people in our society.”
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Good news!
@Keith Fay: they are able to tested 100 k people weekly and vaccine 75 k in there weeks that some joke
@Keith Fay: It will be good news when it happens. At the moment it is just another promise and, judging by the previous ones, it won’t happen.
@Michal Stawowy: because they haven’t got more than 75000 supplied – it is not that difficult a concept to understand ffs. Small….far away…..
@Michal Stawowy: It’s a slightly different process
@JusticeForJoe: yeah I’d say is so complicated like B12 jab in gym dressing room
@Michal Stawowy: That’s embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for you.
Anyone else here who’d happily takeg their Inoculation Appointments at any time, day or night, just to be one step close to the eradication of this virus? That would halve the period of time it would take to vaccinate those of the population that want the vaccine.
@Cardigan Backyardigan:
Oh believe you me the snowflake cry babies who are throwing their toys out of the pram insisting that this world wide health pandemic is a hoax created by the Irish government because they felt that they weren’t getting enough bad press will be in the front of the line when it comes to taking the vaccine.
@James Joseph: who cares, when otherwise their non vaccination would result in pockets of the virus evading eradication – and reduce heard immunity. Whilst they are a pain, the greater good is for as close as is possible to everyone being inoculated.
Why don’t they set up in stadiums around the country and get the army in and just blitz it vaccinating people 24hrs a day 7 days a week?
@Rob Gale: because the supply is not there
@Rob Gale: unfortunately we don’t have enough vaccines on hand to do that
@Rob Gale: the army are not qualified to administer a vaccine nor are they qualified to deal with a potential allergic reaction – some may be, but most would not be.
@Cardigan Backyardigan: surely one or two people in a vaccination centre is enough to cope with allergic reaction. I’d assume it’s a rare occurrence. Have 50 people trained to vaccinate in a centre with one or two capable of coping with a reaction.
@Keith Fay: I wonder did we not order in time !
Many much bigger countries are way ahead
@Jerry Ryan: secured in bulk through EU and distributed on a pro rata basis thereafter I think!
@Jerry Ryan: have 14.5 million doses on order
@Cardigan Backyardigan: the army has a medical corps…….
@Craig Mahon: you need more than 1 or 2 in the event of a severe anaphylaxis.
@Rob Gale: Social distancing….Big crowds….see the problem
@Olga Levis: epipen and off to casualty dept, no need for several people to be involved “in the field”. They’d need to be transported to hospital ASAP anyways, and that’s an ambulance job.
@Olga Levis: I was always of the assumption that administration of an epipen would be enough until transport to hospital. People with sever allergies don’t have medical staff on hand 24/7 in case of a sever reaction.
@Jerry Ryan: nothing to do with ordering on time. The EU ordered as a group with each government promising /restricted not to go maverick. EU secured another 300K vaccines yesterday on top of the previous 300K from Pfizer. It’s a group effort. The likes of Britain and Israel who are not under these constraints can and have gone ahead.
Am delighted! Working frontline line in disability sector and we are all exhausted, burnt out and scared…bring on the vaccine! We were asked to sign up permission today in work to receive vaccine so feels one step closer!
@Sharon Kelly: much respect
@Sharon Kelly: good luck to you Sharon, you deserve it and peace of mind. I couldn’t do your job and many couldn’t. You’ve put your life on the line for almost ten months, and I’m delighted for you and your colleagues. Much respect
@Sharon Kelly: good luck to you Sharon, you deserve it and peace of mind. I couldn’t do your job and many couldn’t. You’ve put your life on the line for almost ten months, and I’m delighted for you and your colleagues. Much respect
Give me the jab as soon as possible!
If the government want people to buy into this latest lockdown, which let’s be honest is probably going to last until at least Easter, then they need to have a proper vaccination program running in tandem with the lockdown. People are fed up, and bordering on depression in some cases, so this vaccine is the only thing giving us hope.
Fantastic news !
Maybe we should actually give it to the front line drs and nurses, over 75s and vulnerable – before the backroom admin staff, seems odd to do it the other way round.
They should use the army to help with speeding up vaccine distribution
@Nicholas Ryan: aren’t enough vaccines for that..
@Clare McAfee: I thought you only dealt with computer viruses?
They are going to do 100 a day instead of 20
@Raymond Kelly: France has done 500, we are at 15000+. Just for reference. And how many prople have we tied up in testing. A fraction of them could be freed up to vaccinate if number requiring testing wasn’t as high.
@Karl Mc Cauley: pharmacists and GPs can administer vaccines. They could hire retired doctors on 6 month contract. There is no shortage people to administer. The organisation is terrible. Two hospitals that were supposed to get the vaccine today had it pulled last minute.
@Aidan O’ Neill: Wouldn’t they need freezers?
Hang on, we could all go to Power City for a jab :-D
If and when we can get our hands on a good steady flow of vaccines would it not be wise to utilise and prepare paramedics/ first responders from the army, fire service, Red Cross, order of Malta and anyone with a required level of first aid who could be quickly trained in vaccinations. I really think the hse need every bit of help possible with this.
Whatever speed they do it at, and without knowing anything about how this works and the logistics of it, or indeed how other EU countries are doing it, can i just say… Israel!
@David Clements: you can. And you can also say .. Denmark. Same population size. One million vaccinated.
@David Clements: Well I wouldn’t hold Israel up to any high standards.
@David Clements: expand I know nothing about Israe
@David Clements: Israel is not in the EU, paid Pfizer big bucks for the vaccines, were themselves researching and testing vaccines back in Oct and Netanyahu is pulling a PR exercise here ahead of the Israeli election in March. The Palestinians will be looking for the crumbs from the Israeli table.
@Rob Gale: as off yesterday denmark had vaccinated 1.41% of it’s population where are you getting 1 million from
@GrumpyAulFella: ah there’s just no way to get sarcasm across on here…
@David Clements: Israel is not vaccinating a sizeable portion of the people – the Palestinians – so there’s more vaccine for Jewish citizens.
@David Clements: you need only have used one word, Israel, followed by a smiley face. That would have lit up the sarcasm radar.
And what’s plan b if everyone is vaccinated and covid is still lurking about.
@John brett: one step at a time there jolly jocks!
@John brett: Covid will always be about. It is not yet known how long these vaccines can provide immunity. Cases will be reduced to a level that society deems as acceptable, just like the flu.
That’s good news
Drive through vaccination might be a good idea?
@Ronan Lawler: great idea driving down the road and have a reaction
@Ronan Lawler: “jab and go” ya might want to think about that one, its not like you are getting a Big Mac and chips
@bmul: how many have had a reaction so far?
@Damo: Park up for 15 minutes they are doing it in the US
@bmul: Park up for 15 minutes they are doing it in the US
@Ronan Lawler: Pff, the US doesn’t care unless you have private insurance.
Just by saying “accelerating” in a sentence to the media doesn’t make it so. We’re still shockingly off the pace.
A good thing
Good news, if they actually deliver, but if we had the capacity to accelerate this process why didn’t we do that from the outset ?
@Declan Doherty: they were holding a weeks worth of supply as a reserve buffer in case supplies were interrupted so that critical needs could be met. That I have gathered from reading thr article. It’s not like they’re sitting around you know what let’s do this slowly just to annoy the journal comments section. Seriously like.
@Ronan Fahy: That line about the buffer is just to fool the more gullible among us. You really need to read between the lines with any communication from this government. We don’t need a buffer, we need vaccinations to proceed at pace. This government are fumbling their way through this crisis and reacting to public noise with empty promises. I have zero confidence that any of the above will actually happen but time will tell.
Great news
Jab…jab, jab…jabjabjabjabjabjab…faster…jabbidyjabbidyjabbidyjabjabjab…down with Covid!!!
10 years later some 100 people still in the legal battle with the state over the side effects of the swine flu vaccine…
200 or 2000 mpg?
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