Nine residents have died with Covid-19 at a nursing home in Co Meath, after the first doses of a vaccine to protect against the disease were administered there.
The Irish Times reports that St Joseph’s Community Nursing Unit experienced one of the most severe post-vaccination outbreaks of the disease during the third wave of the pandemic in January.
First doses of a Covid-19 vaccine were administered to all eligible residents at the home on January 12th and 13th, according to the HSE.
A week later on January 20th, an outbreak of the virus was declared at the home.
25 residents at the 50-bed facility tested positive for Covid-19, with nine dying during the course of the outbreak.
Full immunity
The HSE has warned that full immunity does not follow vaccination until about seven days after the second dose has been given.
“There is a chance you might still get Covid-19, even if you have the vaccine,” a HSE spokesperson said.
“Even though the vaccine is very good and very effective, it is not perfect. It will work better for some people than for others and even people who are protected against severe disease might catch the virus and spread it.”
Second doses of the vaccine were administered to eligible staff and residents of the nursing home on February 2nd. People who have been infected with Covid-19 cannot be vaccinated for 28 days.
The State’s medicines regulator, the Health Products Regulatory Authority, said it had received 17 reports of older patients dying after vaccination as of March 4th.
The patients all had underlying conditions or concurrent illness and the vaccine did not cause the deaths.
