A milestone.
The one-millionth Covid-19 vaccine will be administered in Ireland today. Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said on Monday that Ireland would reach the one million vaccinations ‘milestone’ this week and the HSE are predicting that it will happen today. It’s certainly a milestone for the vaccination programme here in Ireland, although the Government had previously hoped to have 1.25 million doses administered by the end of March which wasn’t achieved due to supply issues.
One in six adults have now received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccination and as of April 3rd, a total of 932,324 doses had been administered here. A record 30,000 people got the shot on Good Friday alone.
The Health Minister, Stephen Donnelly, says we’re making huge progress; “One in six adults in Ireland has now received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. The no. of people with Covid in ICUs has fallen by about 75% since the peak in late January,” he added, “We’ve one of the lowest rates of Covid-19 in Europe now. We’re making huge progress.”
Despite this progress, there could be a further disruption for schools over the coming months as teachers’ unions discuss potential industrial action over the vaccine rollout plans. All three unions discussed the possibility of emergency motions at their annual conferences yesterday in a bid to move teachers up the vaccine priority list. Under the current plan, teachers do not receive priority on the government’s vaccine rollout schedule and are set to receive their vaccine along with the rest of the population.
According to the Minister for Education, Norma Foley, the removal of teachers from the vaccine priority queue is, “not a value judgement on any profession” and it’s simply driven by science.
The groups that are currently being vaccinated in Ireland include people aged 65 and over who live in care facilities, frontline healthcare workers, people aged 70 and older living in the community, and high-risk people aged 16 to 69.
