THE HSE HAS said there “may not be enough to meet the demand” for Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccines for the 18-34 year olds who have signed up to receive it. 

Yesterday, it was confirmed that people aged 18 to 34 can “opt in” to receive the single-shot J&J vaccine in pharmacies from Monday 5 July. 

The same age group can register to receive an AstraZeneca jab from a vaccination centre from 12 July.

Alternatively, the age group can wait to receive an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna through the HSE’s online portal when their age cohort becomes eligible. 

The portal is to open to people aged 30-34 from next Friday 9 July and then younger age cohorts in August. 

After yesterday’s announcement that 18-34 year olds could get a J&J vaccine through participating pharmacies from next week, several pharmacies reported non-stop phone calls from people requesting an appointment.

A statement from Boots Ireland said it has temporarily closed down its bookings for Covid vaccines “as all available appointments have been booked”. 

Some people who had made an online booking with Boots were later informed by text message that their appointment had been cancelled. 

Speaking this afternoon on RTÉ’s Saturday programme about the supply of the J&J vaccine, the HSE’s chief clinical officer Dr. Colm Henry said there is currently “50,000 out there in the system and another 80,000 odd that we’re going to distribute in the coming week or two”. 

He added:  

We will be distributing those based on the demand and based on the relative demand from individual pharmacies and geographical areas. It’s great to see such interest and engagement rather than the opposite, so I have no doubt these additional vaccines will be used. 

“We may not have enough to meet the demand but the point to underline is that this is just one additional option, there are other options too.” 

Henry said he would encourage people registering for J&J to do it at their local participating pharmacy and to register at only one location. 

Earlier today the HSE confirmed that 48% of Irish adults were now fully vaccinated from Covid-19 with a further 20% partially vaccinated. 

Henry said that if the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines that are available were used it would “add another 3-5% to the numbers that are vaccinated”.