Ireland has hit a “significant” virus milestone with one million people fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
The good news comes as one of the country’s largest hospitals, St James’s in Dublin, reported having no patients with coronavirus for the first time since March 2020.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin said: “Over 3.1 million doses have been administered so far.
“Over a million, 1.1 million, have been administered through the vaccination centres and I think about 1.4 million doses by GPs. GPs played an extraordinary role.”
HSE chief Paul Reid hailed the figure reached as “quite remarkable”.
The Taoiseach added that there was now a new vaccine target - 70% of all adults to have had both jabs by the end of July.
Preparations are underway to encourage young people and teens to get vaccinated.
The government hopes to have 82% of adults given at least one dose by the end of this month.
However, due to a shortage in supplies of the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine arriving into the country this month, it’s likely this target will not be met.
Mr Martin said: “The target, it’s all subject to supply and I have to say that strongly.
“But the aim would be to try to get to 70% fully vaccinated [by end of July].
“It’ll be challenging, it’ll be very tight.
“We’ve to drive forward the vaccination programme now throughout June and July to protect our community and society in relation to not just the virus but any variants that may emerge over time.”
Mr Martin said he met with AstraZeneca chiefs last week on the issue of shortages and said the pharma giant has developed new capacities in Spain and Germany.
He described Pfizer as “the workhouse” and said Moderna is “doing fine fulfilling its obligations and now AstraZeneca is coming in a bit stronger”.
But said the supply of Jansen is “not at all clear at this stage”.
Over the Bank Holiday weekend, the rollout passed three million doses administered, with around one-quarter of eligible adults fully vaccinated.
Mr Martin stressed the importance of younger people getting the vaccine stating the acceleration of the rollout here will very much be dependent on them getting the jab.
He said: “A lot will depend on the uptake now in the younger age cohort.
“It’s very, very important that people take up the vaccine when we get an offer because if we all get vaccinated, we’ll protect each other and where Ireland has been fortunate to date is the very high level of vaccine participation rates, very high in comparison to Europe - so many countries are looking at envy in Ireland.
“It’s important as we go down through the younger age cohorts that we have the same levels of participation and uptake of the vaccines as we’ve had in the older cohorts.”
The Fianna Fáil leader told Newstalk that the HSE aims to see all third-level students vaccinated by the time the academic year begins.
He said the HSE will then turn its attention to the country’s teenagers.
Meanwhile, Paul Reid downplayed the news that the national vaccine portal would open next week for people aged between 30-39 to register for the jab.
He said the HSE is not in a position to say yet when registration will open for that age group adding they should be in a better position by the end of next week to confirm when it will start.
He said the HSE wants to see the full uptake of vaccination for those over 40 first before announcing registration for 30-39 years.
He said it’s hoped 270,000-290,000 vaccine doses will be administered next week.
The HSE boss said the rate for ‘no shows’ for vaccine appointments has been around 4.2% since early May.
The figure also includes people who have “changed their mind” on receiving a second jab.
The head of the HSE’s vaccine rollout programme Damien McCallion has urged people not to show up at vaccination centres hoping they will get “lucky” and receive a jab from leftover doses.
He said: “We wouldn’t encourage that.”
On recent Covid-19 case numbers, Mr Reid said over the last 14 days period, almost 80% of the cases have now come from those aged 44 or younger.
He said 6.7% of the cases have come from those aged over 55 and about 2% from those aged over 65.
Meanwhile, the HSE said only 33% of its services that were impacted by the cyber attack have been decrypted.
Mr Reid said “a significant portion of 80,000 HSE laptops will have to be replaced” due to the attack.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation’s Europe director warned the Indian variant is “poised to take hold” in Europe.
Dr Hans Kluge urged caution on the easing of lockdown restrictions across Europe stating “let’s not make that mistake again”.
He said over the course of last summer, Covid-19 cases rose in younger age groups and it contributed to a “devastating resurgence”.
