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HSE chief Paul Reid has said GPs will be “significantly engaged” in the coming week with the launch of the new Covid vaccination program.
The high-level task force, chaired by Professor Brian MacCraith, drew up the massive plan for the vaccine’s deployment, and that will be considered by the Cabinet on Tuesday.
Mr. Reid said that HSE will collaborate with GPs and other parties regarding the program.
“The report goes to the Government and they will consider it on Tuesday, and this report establishes a whole set of areas in which we are focused: logistics, transportation, security, population sequencing, identification of the sites where we will carry out vaccines, the workforce, including GPs and pharmacies, the reporting arrangements, the IT system, and the data issues we’re working on. “
He said GPs will be “significantly engaged as we move into next week, once the government has had an opportunity to consider the report.”
“We have a very good process underway with the Irish Medical Organization and the Irish College of General Practitioners.”
However, he added, there is a time when various workforces will come into operation and that is exactly what they will talk about with GPs.
Mr. Reid noted that there are six different vaccines that are likely, each with different provisions and transportation requirements.
Regarding the first one to arrive here, the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, he said: “We have been working on this for a long time.” He noted that nine refrigerators, which have the ability to cool as low as minus 80C, have been introduced.
In addition, a set of transport logistics will be implemented. Specially designed fleets will take them to their sites.
“We are working through a ‘hub and speak’ agreement where we deliver them to certain sites for vaccination and then they are implemented reasonably quickly at those various sites.”
The first priority is older people in long-term care facilities and healthcare workers.
“We are mapping that in terms of the delivery mechanisms to make it secure,” he said.
Reid said he believes the vaccine is giving people great hope and great inspiration, because it has been a very difficult year for everyone.
“It will be a while before the vaccine becomes our first line of defense,” he said, noting that for some time, the public health measures implemented must continue, “he told RTÉ radio. This week Program.
Meanwhile, with the holiday season fast approaching, he said: “First of all, we should all look forward to Christmas and the New Year with joy and not with undue fear, but with the reasonable precautions that we all must take.
“My drive for people is to find the balance between what is possible versus what is safe and ideally to err on the safe side.”
“If we have the worst scamcreep where we have a high number of cases multiplied by a high number of contacts, that will be a severe risk for us throughout Christmas, and in particular during the next 10 days or so. It will be a serious risk for people to lose their own Christmas by becoming a positive case or a close contact. “
“If you are a confirmed positive case, you are isolated. If you are identified as a close contact, you are restricting his movements, even though he may have tested negative, so he has the potential to ruin Christmas for some people and none of us want that to happen. “
Meanwhile, speaking about the potential impact of Brexit, he told RTÉ that the HSE has secured “reserve stocks” of key medical supplies.
“We have been mobilizing for quite some time. We have a dedicated warehouse in Ballycoolin, in northwest Dublin. We have some contingency stocks there.”
However, he said Brexit causes concern in relation to transit through the UK, “but we have what we secure, reserve stocks, for key medical supplies and other materials.”
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