The Health Minister says the six millionth dose of a Covid-19 vaccine will be administered this week.
Over two million jabs have been given out in the last six weeks alone as the rollout continues.
Stephen Donnelly described on Twitter as “amazing” the scenes of people “wanting their vaccines at the walk-in clinics this weekend”. He said almost three in four adults were fully vaccinated.
The HSE is expecting to start offering vaccines to 12-15 year olds within the next few weeks.
Immunology professor at Trinity College Dublin Kingston Mills says this will be important.
Schools
“I think the big worry is if you open the schools without significant numbers vaccinated, or if you don't have testing systems in place with rapid testing, then we could be looking at significant cases in schools come the autumn.”
Prof Mills added: “That's really why parents and young people need to be encouraged to go out and get vaccinated as quickly as possible.”
Meanwhile, the HSE will consider using walk-in Covid vaccination centres again following the huge success of the initiative.
More than 18,000 people received a first dose at a walk-in clinic this bank holiday weekend.
Half of those attending were aged 16 and 17, with 64 per cent aged 19 or under.
The HSE's chief clinical officer, Dr Colm Henry, says the initiative will be reviewed.
Dr Henry said: “Obviously we'll be reviewing this given it is way beyond our expectations in terms of success, engagement and enthusiasm, and we'll be seeing if we can replicate this, anything we can do to improve uptake we'll be looking at.”
