More than 460,000 vaccine doses in Ireland by the end of March, health minister says
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There will be almost half a million doses of Covid-19 vaccines in Ireland by the end of March, the minister for health has said.
This includes a combination of 350,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 110,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine, with hopes high that the AstraZeneca vaccine and a further vaccine from Johnson & Johnson could be approved soon too, boosting supplies further.
The latter comes in a single dose and is easier to apply, Stephen Donnelly told RTÉ radio, adding that by the end of February, he anticipated that all nursing home residents and staff along with frontline workers will have been vaccinated.
The minister also defended the pace of the vaccination programme on Newstalk.
"Ireland’s approach was that the only constraint would be the arrival of the vaccine, he said.
The situation in the country was now “very serious” he told . There were 921 people in hospital with Covid-19 — 89 of them in critical care. The UK variant was now in the country “at a serious level” across all parts of the country.
The arrival of the UK variant made it difficult to model and project when the peak will come, he said: “The plan is not to run out of ICU beds.”
That was why extra measures had been introduced. Under surge capacity plans there would be 350 ICU beds with a further 50 in private hospitals, if necessary, he added.
The message remained for people to stay at home, said Mr Donnelly.
He also noted it is the government's 'absolute intention' that the Leaving Cert exams will go ahead as planned.
That is despite the 'very serious' risk posed by Covid-19. But, he said, the public health advice is that schools are safe, but people moving to and from them is not.
Mr Donnelly said that he had sought advice specifically from the chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan on the opening of schools.
He said that advice says that children appear protected from the virus and that the opening of schools in August had "no discernible" effect on the increase of cases.
Mr Donnelly said that there was "ongoing contact" with teaching unions with regard to the plan to open schools to Leaving Cert students for three days a week.
He said it was education minister Norma Foley's "absolute intention" that the Leaving Cert go ahead in its traditional format, rather than a return to the predicted grades that were used for the class of 2020.