The Cabinet is expected on Tuesday to approve the purchase of almost one million extra doses of Covid-19 vaccine.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly opted into the purchase of an additional 875,000 Moderna vaccines at the weekend, bringing Irelandâs total order from the US drug firm to 1.65 million.
It is hoped up to one million of the doses can be delivered to Ireland by July, thereby allowing for a significant ramping up of the overall vaccine rollout in the first half of the year.
After weeks of setbacks around vaccine supply, sparked by manufacturing issues and a bitter row between the European Commission and AstraZeneca over supplies to the EU, Irish officials overseeing the rollout are growing more confident about the prospects of an early ramping up of the programme.
The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) yesterday wrote to Mr Donnelly in relation to the authorisation of the AstraZeneca vaccine for over-65s along with the rest of the adult population.
Expected authorisation
The expected authorisation for this vaccine means the administration of vaccine to older people is likely to start in the next 10 days.
Prof Karina Butler, chair of Niac, said: âWe have sent our advice and it is being considered.â
With the order of additional supplies of the Moderna vaccine, Ireland has in total purchased 16 million vaccine doses from all suppliers, enough to vaccinate 9.1 million people, though some of the vaccines have yet to be authorised for use in the EU.
So far, 207,330 vaccines have been delivered to Ireland, of which 199,800 have been administered, latest figures show.
Public health officials last night expressed concern about a âplateauingâ of daily virus case numbers. Some of the slowing decline is due to the resumption of testing of contacts from last Friday, but officials said workplace outbreaks and the new variant first identified in the UK may also be to blame.
âDropping their guardâ
Workplaces were emerging as settings where people were dropping their guardâ, according to National Public Health Emergency Team official Dr Philip Nolan, and due to the spread of the UK variant this was more likely to âhave consequencesâ.
Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan advised people against planning foreign holidays this summer, saying Nphetâs recommendation against non-essential travel was âfor the foreseeable futureâ.
âI donât think weâre heading for a summer where millions of people from this part of the word can head to the beaches, other than the beaches in their own localities,â he said.
Ten further deaths of Covid-19 patients were reported along with 1,062 new cases.
So far, 207,330 vaccines have been delivered to Ireland, of which 199,800 have been administered, latest figures show.
Thatâs good going. Pretty much everything that has arrived has gone out.
Well, theyâve fairly shut us up. So far.
It remains to be seen how we do when the big nunbers arrive.
Do you think weâll arrive at a point around June/July private companies will start offering the vaccine ?
Great stuff. Do you have a breakdown of how many of the vaccines were administered by teachers and air hostesses
I donât think so. Not that early at least. It would be fairly toxic for companies to be selling vaccines to private providers while countries are still crying out for supplies, especially poorer countries. And itâs in rich countries interests to get other countries vaccinated too before more strains develop and sneak in and undo all the vaccination thatâs been done.
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I suppose it depends on how many vaccines come on stream over the next couple of months. Most countries have heavily over ordered. I think a secondary market will develop very quickly.
I see online a Nursing Home in Tipp Town had their residents receive their second dozes yesterday.
Rich countries have over ordered, they need to quickly share the surplus with everywhere else then, and even that will not sort out the rest.
I think it would be a massive failing if they allowed a situation to develop whereby you could get faster access to a vaccine if you paid for it.
Bang will be raffling vaccines in a few months.
A grey market?
Iâd say they doze more than twice a day.
Make it so
Ya going well so far. However I would caution theyâve been hitting the low hanging fruit with hospitals and nursing homes where everyone is there in the one place, and only had 50k to give out a week. The North did 20k in a day the other day, thatâs the equivalent of us doing 50k in a day. So basically doing in four days, what weâve done in a month. Serious ramp up needed. Theyâll surely be ready for it though, theyâve had a nice gradual build up period. The AZ is the next step. GPs and Pharmacists can get involved then. Then J&J to to finish the job in the younger category. We should have vaccines coming out our ears by the end of April. May Bank Holiday weekend will be off the chain
The GPs did 1.5m flu vaccines in 6 weeks.
It was an easier one to administer but if we can get them firing out the one dose J&J one theyâll fly through it. Especially at the moment when no one is sick with anything other than covid.
The north is in the UK and has way more supply on hand so youâre comparing apples and oranges.