More than 500,000 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered across the country while 539 new COVID-19 cases are known in the Republic of Ireland, 6 of which are in Clare.
On Saturday, the Taoiseach Micheál Martin (FF) confirmed that half a million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the Republic of Ireland. “The vaccines are having a significant impact on mortality and serious illness. The number of COVID patients in hospitals and ICU is reducing all the time,” he stated.
In Clare, six new cases of the virus are known. 136.3 is the 14 day incidence rate per 100k of the population in the county making it the eleventh lowest in the Republic.
Of the 539 new cases nationally, 245 are in Dublin, 42 in Meath, 29 in Kildare, 26 in Limerick, 24 in Cork and the remaining 173 cases are spread across 19 other counties.
An additional 14 deaths related to the virus are known. 9 deaths occurred in March, 1 occurred in February and 4 in January or earlier. The median age of those who died was 80 years and the age range was 59-94 years. There has been a total of 4,419 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.
Latest hospital figures from 8am on Saturday revealed that 414 patients are hospitalised because of COVID-19, 101 of which are in critical care. 22 additional hospitalisations occurred in the past 24 hours.
All three vaccine suppliers have had changes to date, CEO of the HSE, Paul Reid stated. Deliveries of the 3.8 million doses of vaccine that have been committed from the manufacturers between April and June. “I do hope it stabilises much better than it has in this quarter,” he said today. Two
deliveries from AstraZeneca of 64,000 and 12,000 doses have been missed in recent weeks.
Reaching the target of 1.2m doses for the end of the first quarter of this year will be a challenge, Reid commented. Approximately 200,000 of those doses are only due to arrive on the last day of March and will not be administered on that day.
Reid said issues in delivering vaccines to GPs last week have been addressed. Sixty-five GP practices who were not in a position to buddy up with a larger practice to give jabs to their patients over 85 will get deliveries next week.
