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THE ROLLOUT OF the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine will begin today at four acute hospitals in the Republic of Ireland.
A small number of vaccines will be administered at Beaumont and St James’ hospitals in Dublin as well as Cork and Galway university hospitals.
An initial 10,000 doses of the vaccine arrived in the country on St Stephen’s Day and have been in cold storage since then.
The first doses will be delivered to the hospitals around lunchtime today before being administered to frontline staff and some patients.
Professor Brian MacCraith, chair of the Government’s vaccine rollout taskforce, believes it’s “very possible” that vaccinations will be rolled out in all nursing homes by the end of February.
But speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland Programme this morning, he said that the very first dose will be administered to a 79-year-old patient in St James’ Hospital at 1.30pm today.
“Among the first to receive the vaccine will be — very appropriately — an ICU staff nurse; a staff nurse from the Covid Ward; a junior doctor and an allied health professional as well,” Professor MacCraith said.
“But the very first person to receive the vaccination is a patient called Annie. I won’t give her full name.
“She’s 79. She was born in Christchurch, and grew up in the Liberties. Sadly, her husband passed away earlier this year and just four weeks before her admission in October. She has 10 grandchildren, one of whom works in the ICT department at St James’.
“I’m told that she is delighted to be getting the vaccine and feels very privileged to be the first person.”
Professor MacCraith said that in the first few weeks of the rollout, half of the doses will be held back until there is regularity of supply.
“The approach we’re taking initially — because these are dual-dose vaccines — just until we get absolute certainty about regularity of supply, we will hold back 50% in the initial weeks,” he said.
“Now, we’re expecting that that regularity will happen. And we’re getting more and more assurances from Pfizer in that regard. But, in the coming weeks, we will be growing the numbers.”
MacCraith also expressed hope that by the end of August, everyone in Ireland who wants to be vaccinated against Covid-19 will have received a vaccine.
Although “it’s impossible to be absolutely precise” at the moment, he said that in “one very positive scenario” modelled by the taskforce, Ireland would be receiving an average of 530,000 doses of the vaccine by August.
“And we’d be ready to deploy those vaccines,” he said.
“So I think certainly if all things come to pass… in terms of expected approval rates and expected delivery schedules, one would be looking at that stage of being very close or at the point of closing out the actual vaccination of as much of the population of Ireland that want the vaccine.”
More to follow…
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An Apple a day, makes a few people very, very wealthy. In saying that, I love my iPhone.
Tax free too I hear!
Removal of the aux jack has to be one of the most moronic design decisions I’ve ever seen.
If you had your way we’d still be using cassettes,wireless is the way to go no need for a clumsy cable attached to the phone
There’s no need for a clumsy cable but seeing as they’re not quite obsolete yet it’s nice to have the option.
I wish that I could use cassettes on my IPhone 3!
You will have the option… The packaging will include a little cable to attach your legacy earphones to the Lightning port.
The removal of the headphone jack will make room in the very tight space within the handset for other technology.
People said the same thing when the iPhone first released with pretty much only one button.
Goodbye charging my phone and listening to music simultaneously.
Huh, ever heard of Bluetooth headphones!! Not expensive either
I wouldn’t mind if Tim Cook was to announce ApplePay being rolled out to Ireland. It’s already in the UK for the past year or so, and seeing as they rely on Mastercard and Visa and both card-services companies see UK&I as a single territory, it shouldn’t be difficult to push it out here.
The announcement of an Apple Store (apparently they’re to be called just “Apple”, dropping the “Store” bit) in Dublin or Cork would be nice.
Apple-Pay still isn’t in Ireland?! I use it the whole time in the U.K.
Nope, still not here. Contactless payments are commonplace, just not from mobiles.
You can actually top-up your Leapcard (like the OysterCard) using NFC on Android too, just not on Apple devices.
That’s to do with Apple not letting devs use NFC
No it’s not, it’s because they haven’t battered out the agreements with the Irish Banks. I believe only France are euro-zone Apple Pay ready.
No apple store anytime soon in ireland , compu b has a contract in place for a few years yet that has a clause that there will be no apple stores unless they pay a significant break fee
I think part of the reason Apple pay isn’t in Ireland I’d they can’t get a vendor to operate it here
Ireland still doesn’t have enough NFC payment terminals to make it worth rolling out. It’s fine in city centres but outside of that we’re still too small a market to make the rollout worthwhile. It’s the same reason Samsung Pay and Android Pay have no intentions of rolling out here. We’ll get it eventually but we’ll be one of the last in Europe.
iPhone, therefore I am.
#Android4Ever
There’s always one
When Samsung’s software team get it together I’ll do the aul switcheroo
Just flash it with a custom ROM. Samsung’s own is designed for obsolescence and is generally bloated and buggy.
The lives of very many will now have meaning. The wealth of a very few will be greatly, greatly enriched.
You will pay VAT on the device and, unless it is provided by your employer, you will pay for this device out of after tax net income.
You will find that the phone is already obsolete in that Apple, as with other manufacturers, has more and more improved technology already refined and ready but withheld for the next and following iPhones.
Enjoy.
Someone got out of the wrong side of the beef this morning. Don’t begrudge others for wanting something.
What’s your point though? Should nobody buy phones again ever?
I would say that at least 50% of iPhones end their lives in the toilet. Imagine the profit loss if they made them toilet proof!
Jackie what do you be doing with your phone in the toilet?
I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong but the number of times I hear that phones fall out of back pockets, get dropped, are thrown by small kids into the loo. 3 have ended this way in our family alone. Thank goodness for phone insurance!
The screen won’t be OLED, not until next year. I guarantee you that. Change the article now if you want.
True. OLED screen is coming next year along with an edge to edge screen without any bezels at the top and bottom of the device. Also it will return to a glass casing instead of aluminium.
Just saying Big Sony night planned.
Here’s a new idea. How about a new phone that is twice as thick and can run for three days from a charge due to the extra battery space. If one manufacturer launched the same model with thick and thin models I think I know which one would sell better. They have conditioned the market to accept charging every day or even twice or the times a day.
It wouldn’t just be thick but also very heavy. That won’t wash with anyone.
My Galaxy S4 lasts about two days.
Previously I had Galaxy Mega which used to last 2-4 days depending on the usage.
the important thing to remember when buying an iphone is…
that you’re wasting your fookin’ money!
We will see a phone that looks like the previous generation with no headphone jack however for an extra few euro apple will sell you an adaptor ! Can’t wait
Great products, not so great people. What are the ever going to do with all that cash stashed away out of the US taxman’s hands? Buy Micorosoft and put it out of its misery? Seriously, there is now so much competition in China and elsewhere with good, low cost phones that Apple has no growth markets left. Lots of people keeping their 4′s and 5′s longer than Tim would like….
So is iOS 10 for I phone 6 software available tonight ?
Hardly. It’ll probably arrive when the first iPhone 7 hits the shelves.
have your say