The chief executive of the health service has "never felt a stronger moment of hope and optimism" as Covid-19 vaccines roll out in Ireland.
Paul Reid said the HSE had been working seven days a week since January of 2020 and he had never felt better optimism, which was directly related to the vaccine rollout.
He told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland he was “highly encouraged” by the level of registration among those aged 56 to 59 for vaccination.
“I've certainly never felt a stronger moment of hope and optimism than we do feel now and it is grounded, not just on optimism, it is grounded based on evidence,” Mr Reid said.
“We all really want to see this home now. We still have a lot of the (vaccine) programme to get through.”
There was strong momentum for the rollout, Mr Reid added, with 220,000 to 240,000 people expected to be vaccinated this week and a further 250,000 to 270,000 next week.
On Thursday of this week 46,000 people were vaccinated — the highest one-day number to date.
“We’re now on a regular basis, beginning to hit over 40,000 each day,” Mr Reid said.
“So we’re really at the point of very strong momentum to give the public confidence.”
Mr Reid described take-up of the vaccine as strong and said the HSE had been encouraged by it.
People aged 56 are now able to register for a coronavirus vaccine through the HSE’s online portal.
Mr Reid said that as of Thursday, about 452,000 people aged between 57 and 69 had registered through the portal. On average, about 28,000 people are signing up each day.
People in the 60 to 69 cohort were also still registering and he encouraged anyone who has not yet done so to come forward.
He said the health service was seeing reduced hospital admissions, reduced ICU admissions and reduced mortality, all directly correlated to the vaccination programme for those who have been vaccinated.
Revised plan
The revised vaccination plan has been concluded and the HSE is awaiting a response from the Government, Mr Reid said. The three key principles of the plan were to continue the rollout on the basis of age; to use all vaccines available at any time with no holding any for later; and to maximise use of available vaccines.
Mr Reid also confirmed that pregnant women will be offered vaccines from next week.
Asked whether one million vaccine doses will be administered in the month of May, Mr Reid said that despite about 40,000 fewer doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine being delivered, supplies overall were strong.
“We’re down about 40,000 for the month,” he said. “It was a delivery of approximately 140,000 down to about 100,000 but we will still hopefully expect them to make that up.”
Despite his optimism, Mr Reid said there should be caution as just one in three people had received their first vaccine and just one in eight had their second dose. “We still have a lot to get through, we don’t want to slip back.”
Antigen tests
When asked about antigen test kits going on sale in Lidl from today, Mr Reid said that antigen testing had a role to play, especially in certain sectors. However, he said that PCR testing remained the gold standard as there were issues with the accuracy of antigen testing for those who were asymptomatic or not experienced with testing.
Mr Reid said he expected frontline staff to take the vaccine. They were taking a risk if they did not and decisions would have to be taken on a local basis, he said, but it was not appropriate for someone who had not been vaccinated to be dealing face-to-face with people.
On the issue of the measurement of Covid-19 deaths in Ireland which is alleged to have been under-reported by an international study, Mr Reid said that he believed Ireland had taken the right approach, but he was certain that correlation studies would be completed shortly.
It comes as eight further deaths linked to coronavirus and an additional 393 cases were confirmed in Ireland on Thursday.
As of Tuesday, a total of 1,655,866 doses of Covid-19 vaccines had been administered in Ireland, comprising 1,201,373 first doses and 454,493 second doses.
