Any update on the number of vaccines delivered to date?
What’s the age cutoff for those needing the vaccine?
Is it younger than 18?
Did they hit the magic 35k or fall well short as expected
Can I have a few pints before the munster championships or is that too much to ask?
We’re nearly out of it lads
Have they released the numbers vaccinated? I thought they were going to release them daily with the case numbers
They said last week it will be updated online once a week iirc. They never gave a day
Not yet.
It’ll be next week before the figures appear on the dashboard.
1 Like
235k to date.
Covid in Ireland: Barristers call for key-worker status in vaccine rollout
A body which represents barristers has written to the government requesting that the profession be included in the “key worker” category for the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine.
The priority list for the vaccine, published last month, states that designated “key workers” are sixth in line for the jab after groups such as care homes, the elderly and healthcare workers. There are 15 categories overall.
It remains unclear which professions are in the “key worker” category. The government website states that this list is still to be “further refined”.
A spokeswoman for the Bar Council, which represents all barristers in Ireland, confirmed to The Times yesterday that it had written to the government on the matter last month.
“The Council of The Bar of Ireland wrote to government in December setting out the current exposure of its members in the delivery of these services, and requesting that the profession be included within the ‘key worker’ category mapped out by the task force on the Covid-19 vaccination for the vaccination roll-out.”
She added: “Urgent criminal work and child care and domestic violence applications, as well as other family law matters, have required barrister attendance throughout the pandemic. Likewise, some court business continues to be undertaken requiring the presence of barristers, clients, gardaí and other witnesses.
“As a consequence, and pursuant to government regulations, barristers are deemed ‘essential workers’ by government given the necessary role they play representing clients who are before the courts and in the provision of legal services.”
She said it was “not the desire” of barristers to displace other groups, in particular those that were vulnerable or who had a higher level of exposure to the public. “However, as essential workers who are providing a continuous and necessary service to the state throughout the pandemic, representing clients in courts all over the country, it is appropriate that barristers should be considered within the ‘key worker’ category,” she said.
The Bar Council said that it had not yet received a formal response from government.
Another barrister, Darren Lalor, yesterday published a letter he wrote to Stephen Donnelly, the health minister, in which he called on the government to ensure those who worked in the criminal courts in Dublin would be given “immediate access” to the vaccine.
He wrote: “Considering the growing uncertainty in controlling the spread of Covid-19 and the numbers of essential workers required to attend to provide essential services in the Criminal Courts of Justice, please provide confirmation and details as to what immediate provisions you department has put in place to ensure that identified essential workers such as I will receive the Covid-19 vaccine as a matter of priority.”
Mr Lalor told The Times the issue was causing “great concern” among other barristers and that some were not returning to work. He said barristers, members of the garda force and others working in the courts were a “walking time bomb” in relation to the virus due to the lack of ventilation. He said he agreed, at the very least, that barristers should be placed in the “key worker” category for access to the vaccine.
“We are not asking to be in the same category as the doctors or nurses, but you are working in a building where you can’t open the window,” he said.
He added: “We are dealing with very vulnerable people and who have been in garda stations and we don’t know where they have been. We are dealing with members of he garda force and we don’t know who they have been in contact with. So I feel we are walking time bombs.”
A spokesman for the government said: “All of the groups will be covered as further vaccine supplies become available and the immunisation programme is rolled out nationally. The evidence will be kept under review and the allocation groups may be updated.”
The government has come under increasing pressure in the last number of weeks to clarify which professions will be in the “key worker” category. The Garda Representative Association (GRA) called for its members to be prioritised, with representatives of workers in meath plants and members of the Defence Forces also calling for their members to be included.
Separately, there was speculation over the weekend that Leaving Certificate students would be moved up the list to ensure that they would be able to complete their exams this summer. Alan Kelly, leader of the Labour Party, called for teachers, special needs assistants and childcare workers to be considered “key workers”.
They and the solicitors won’t be able to sign over dying people’s assets to themselves otherwise.
1 Like
Good
Sensible decision that I didn’t think would happen. I guess the mood music changing from Ferguson and our own Luke has changed things.
Huge dependency on the oxford vaccine that hasn’t been approved yet in those numbers
Is the current weekly stock not in the region of 40-50k anyway with Pfizer and Moderna and I think it’s said that the Pfizer one now offers an extra doses in every vial with both likely to increase with time.
Supply won’t be an issue for not reaching those targets.
Governments with the proper structures in place should be reaching 70% vaccination levels by summer.
55000 done here yesterday. Total 260000 so far. Early doors though, still ramping it up.
2 Likes
Any reason why the Pfizer amount is so low relative to the Oxford one?
Contracts were concluded to buy 400 million doses of Astrazeneca, 600 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, 300 million doses of the French Sanofi-GSK vaccine, and 400 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
There are further contracts for 160 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, 405 million doses of CureVac and there are talks with Novavax with a view to purchasing up to 200 million doses.
Surely Pfizer should be making up the bulk of that vaccine supply?