THE HEALTH SERVICE Executive (HSE) has launched a bank holiday weekend vaccination drive in a bid to encourage people to get a Covid-19 jab amid a rise in infections across the country.

Additional walk-in vaccination centres — for first and second doses of mostly the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine — will be open over the weekend in some regions, the HSE said yesterday.

The clinics will be open to anyone over the age 12. Children aged between 12 and 15 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. 

Alternatively, appointments can be made by registering online on the HSE website.

Today, walk-in centres will be open in City Hall in Cork City, Letterkenny Community Assessment Hub in Donegal and the Glencarn Hotel in Monaghan among other places.

Clinics will also be opened at Punchestown and Limerick Racecourses and the Citywest Convention Centre in Dublin over the weekend and on bank holiday Monday.

A full list of the walk-in clinics and their opening times is available here.

Currently, 92.4% of people over the age of 18 are fully vaccinated, with 20,000 doses administered in the last week. The HSE is trying to encourage the roughly 370,000 people who are either not vaccinated or not fully vaccinated to get a jab.

Speaking earlier this week, Damian McCallion, National Director Covid Vaccination Programme, said the HSE is running the Halloween Covid-19 vaccine campaign to give people the “maximum opportunity to get vaccinated”. 

Part of that will be an information campaign with messaging around unvaccinated people, which the HSE hopes will get through to them and “we continue to see some increased movement on that”, he said.

McCallion said the people the HSE wants to reach are those who are in hesitant communities, women who have concerns about pregnancy and fertility, people who need easier access to a vaccine site, and all those will underlining conditions.

“We know from our ICU consultants, many of those people in ICU who were unvaccinated had underlying conditions or medical conditions that made them medically vulnerable, such as obesity,” said McCallion.

“So it’s really important if you’re in those categories you come forward, because we can see the consequences for people.”