HSE boss Paul Reid has defended the rollout of the vaccine here and said confidence levels with AstraZeneca have been “rocked”.
Mr Reid said we were due to get a total of 377,000 doses of the vaccine from the pharma giant for the first quarter.
However, Mr Reid said he does not have clarity yet on how many vaccines we are due to get next week.
Overall, he said between 75,000 and 85,000 people are to be vaccinated next week.
Mr Reid said “our confidence levels have been fairly rocked with” AstraZeneca in terms of delivery and supplies of the lifesaving vaccines.
He said in the last three to four weeks the failure on their part “has been very impactful” on the daily vaccine rollout here.
Mr Reid said AstraZeneca’s deliveries have been thousands of doses short at times and defended the HSE’s handling of the rollout.
He said: “There was one delivery where we would be expecting 52,000 and we would get an early forecast, sorry that's 26,000 and then very shortly before that we'd get an indication that it's less than 10,000.”
“That is the environment we are trying to operate in and we’re being held accountable for missing our targets which is bizarre.”
Mr Reid said around 50,000 of next week’s doses will go to the over-70s, with thousands also set aside to complete the vaccination of people in long-term care.
Around 15,000 doses will go to people with long-term medical vulnerabilities.
He said: “We are going to continue to rollout for the over-70s.
“We will continue in long-term care facilities to address a final sweep for dose ones and continue the sweep for dose twos. Similarly, on the Cohort Four, the medically vulnerable group.
“So ultimately next week, it will be in the range of, again based on forecasted committed supplies, in the range of 75,000 to 85,000 for next week.”
Mr Reid added there are around 150,000 people in the medically vulnerable category and the majority of them will be contacted for vaccination by the hospitals they usually attend.
Meanwhile, the HSE chief has urged caution about easing of Covid restrictions stating the current situation is “a real cause for concern” and we are not at “normal levels.”
Dr Colm Henry, the HSE’s Chief Clinical Officer echoed Mr Reid’s concerns and said despite positive downward trends people can get distracted and the Covid figures are still signalling “there is ongoing disease coming in and that will translate to ongoing pressures in hospitals.”
When asked if he is concerned about the possibility of the government easing restrictions come April 5, Mr Henry said that is a decision for the government but warned our five day average is over 400 cases per day - nearly double what it was in December.
While CEO Paul Reid said: “The base that we’re at is a real cause of concern so 360 people in hospital is higher than we were in the second wave in hospital.
“Having people with the same illness in hospitals at the same time is not normal..we’re not at normal levels of our hospitalisations..and we’re still using increased capacity in our ICU.”
