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A 79-year-old Dublin grandmother will be the first person in the state to receive the coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday afternoon.
The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine will begin to be administered at St James’s and Beaumont Hospitals in Dublin, Cork University Hospital and Galway University Hospital from today.
The first person in the Republic to receive the vaccine will be Annie (79), who grew up in Liberties and will be inoculated at St James Hospital in Dublin. This is expected to happen around 1.30pm, according to the head of the vaccine working group, Professor Brian MacCraith.
“This is a momentous day. It is the beginning of a complex process, the beginning of the end of a terrible period, ”he told Morning Ireland on RTÉ radio.
Among those who will be the first to receive the vaccine will be a nurse from the ICU staff, a nurse from the Covid ward, a junior physician and an allied health professional, added Professor MacCraith.
There are currently just under 10,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech two-step vaccine in the country. About 30,000 more are expected to arrive today.
Two doses of the vaccine are required for each person, so 10,000 doses are required to vaccinate 5,000 people.
This will be followed by 40,000 per week during January and early February. The plan is to vaccinate 20,000 people a week from the beginning of January, and this will increase to 40,000 over the course of the month and into February.
He explained that the reason that half of the doses that arrived in the country on December 26 were withheld was to ensure that they have sufficient quantities to administer the required second dose.
This was a precaution and once the supply chains, manufacturing schedules and delivery dates have been confirmed, “we will never hold the vaccine,” he said.
There have been some difficulties around supplying the vaccine in other countries, which explains the caution, he said. “We want to get to a situation where we can use all 40,000 doses as soon as possible,” he said.
Professor MacCraith said that when the AstraZeneca vaccine becomes available it will be “a game changer” because it does not have to be stored at extremely low temperatures.
By August he hoped that anyone who wanted the vaccine would have it.
A recent survey had indicated that more than 70 percent of the population would be willing to receive the vaccine, and only one in ten said no.
A communication campaign to provide reassurance and address concerns would play an important role in the coming months, he said.
The first phase of the rollout will focus on frontline healthcare workers and older people in long-term residential care settings, such as nursing homes.
The plan to vaccinate more than 580 nursing homes will begin on January 11, but some vaccinations in nursing homes will take place the week before.
It is expected that until the end of February two doses of the vaccine will be administered to the 70,000 inhabitants and personnel of the vulnerable sector.
Initially, the vaccination of people in nursing homes will be carried out by 180 community health vaccinators.
The HSE has said that another 1,500 vaccinators will be available in the acute hospital system as the implementation plan accelerates.
The second phase of the launch of the vaccine will include the administration of doses to cohorts of the general public, according to the priority group, by general practitioners, pharmacists and in mass vaccination centers.
“Today, a great beacon of light begins to shine, as we begin our vaccination program,” wrote HSE Executive Director Paul Reid on Twitter.
“We are going to galvanize ourselves and unite behind this. It will take time, but stay positive, stay safe, stay with us and we’ll get there. “
There are indications that Moderna’s vaccine, which is also complex to administer, could be approved as of January 6. There will be more than 300,000 doses delivered to the state before the end of February, more than enough to immunize the entire nursing home sector.
Next on the vaccination list are people 70 and older; other health workers; people 65 to 69 years old; key workers; people at risk due to medical conditions; and those who live or work in crowded conditions.
This will be followed by people who work in education; those from 55 to 64 years old; workers in other occupations important to the functioning of society; people between 18 and 54 years old; and, finally, pregnant women and those under 18 years of age.
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