ELDERLY NOW FACE FURTHER DELAY ON VACCINES

Target set by Taoiseach will be short by 50k

THE Government’s vaccine pledge to the elderly has been dealt another blow with the number of shots cut by 50,000.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin had promised 1.25million vaccines by the end of this month; however, HSE chief Paul Reid yesterday said only 1.2million would be available for delivery.

The disappointment for our most vulnerable comes amid the ongoing frustration over the Covid threat from people flying in to the country.

The promised quarantine law was

finally before President Michael D Higgins to be signed yesterday, but a ‘contract with a service provider’ still has to be arranged, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said.

The HSE warned GPs yesterday to expect fewer vaccines in the coming weeks after Mr Martin admitted it would be ‘very challenging’ to meet the targets for this month.

Last week, many GPs criticised the rollout, as they were left without doses for the over-85s. In a letter to GPs on Saturday night, the HSE said the total vaccine doses available for distribution would be 15% less than the amount needed to meet the over-80s cohort.

‘Due to a re-profiling of the Moderna vaccine delivery schedule, the total vaccine doses available for distribution in the coming weeks is now slightly less than previously advised,’ the letter said.

It added: ‘This means you may not receive the total order for these coming weeks, but, in all instances, the amount you are to receive will be advised to you and any shortfall in vaccine for the over-80 age group will be allocated in your next order and so on through March, with a significant ramp-up in vaccine delivery in April as increased supplies arrive in Ireland.

‘Unfortunately, these supply issues are outside of our control.’

Mr Reid told RTÉ’s This Week yesterday that the delivery of Moderna vaccines over the next couple of weeks has been ‘rescheduled slightly’. He said: ‘For example, next week we have 37,000 of the mRNA vaccine between Pfizer and Moderna, to be vaccinated in the 80-to-85-year-olds. However, the requirements and total numbers from the GPs would be about 15% above that for next week. So, what we are saying to the GPs, we want to be clear around what they can expect to be delivered versus their order, so there’s no surprises like some of the experiences that some of the GPs had this week.’

Mr Reid said that all older people in long-term care facilities will be vaccinated by the end of this week, with all healthcare workers receiving at least one dose by the middle of March. He added that we are coming to the end a three-week vaccination programme of those aged 85 and older with 95% of the 72,500 over-85s completed.

He added: ‘We’ve had significant

Foster hopes we ‘pick up pace’

issues in terms of supply. Specifically, we have some issues around the delivery of AstraZeneca, which has impacted us particularly over the last couple of weeks.

‘We have been assured by AstraZeneca that those shortfalls will be made up over the coming couple of weeks, and they will live up to their commitment of about 377,000 for the quarter in total.’

Mr Reid admitted that the commitments they now have from the three suppliers are for 1.2million doses by the end of this quarter.

He said: ‘Next week we’ll be administering about 10,000 vaccines to people who fall into the very high-risk category overall.

‘In the first week it’ll be people probably with intellectual neurological issues and particularly in disability homes and settings but in parallel we are working through a clear list of the key chronic illnesses.’

The delays allowed the North’s First Minister, DUP leader Arlene Foster, the opportunity to say she hoped we in the south would ‘pick up pace’. While we recently surpassed half a million doses of vaccine administered, the North reached 600,000 shots last week.

Ms Foster said: ‘My desire, of course, as a neighbour, is to see everyone vaccinated on the island of Ireland, and I very much hope that the vaccine programme in the Republic does pick up pace because it’s important that if people are coming and travelling across the border that they are vaccinated, but also for the population of the Republic as well.’

She blamed the ‘inflexibility of the EU’ for the differential.

And yesterday, The Irish Mail on Sunday revealed that dozens of office workers from one Dublin HSE office were vaccinated in the past fortnight in a move described as ‘queue-skipping’. The jabs were given last month and were largely of clerical and non-Covid-facing HSE staff at the Community Healthcare Organisation Dublin North City and County offices. This was organised by HSE managers. The HSE admitted the vaccines were given but said this was done in keeping with the zerowastage policy of the vaccine.

Meanwhile, President Higgins signed the Health (Amendment) Bill 2021 into law yesterday, which allows for a system of mandatory hotel quarantine for people arriving in from certain countries.

Minister Donnelly said: ‘The operationalisation of designated quarantine facilities is being advanced on a cross-departmental basis as a matter of priority.

‘The next step in this process is to finalise and sign a contract with a service provider. I anticipate this will happen shortly.’

On the vaccine delays, Fianna Fáil TD Marc MacSharry said: ‘These ongoing disappointments prove we need to diversify when it comes to vaccines. I have been proposing this since January. This weekly disappointment begs the question as to what contracts we have as compared to the UK and Israel. Their contracts clearly have teeth; ours don’t. They do not appear to have these weekly delays across the border.’

He added: ‘I would now be concerned that we are late in the

‘An excess of delay can kill too’

queue for the next set of vaccines. I am not opposed to caution in these matters but an excess of delay can kill too.’

Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane TD said: ‘It is clear that we now have problems on both the supply and administration side.

‘Over the last few weeks we have seen interruption on the supply side, first with AstraZeneca and now Moderna. We need answers as to why this is happening. When supply targets are agreed, they should be met.’