Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly (FF) has had to clarify his statement me made in the Dáil last week that every Irish citizen would be offered the jab within eight months.
During a radio interview on Newstalk, Minister Donnelly made a number of clarifications on his Dáil statement.
“At the moment the vaccines we have are for adults. Moderna I think is 17 up, Pfizer, I would have to check absolutely, but for the moment it is adult residents.”
Minister Donnelly plans to have 700,000 vaccinated by the end of March 2021.
Donnelly said the plan would see about 3.5 million people vaccinated by September – but warned that the projections are “all super-preliminary.” He also said that Irish residents and not just Irish Citizens would be offered the vaccine for free.
This weekend, our neighbours in the UK administered almost two million vaccinations with 6,353,321 vaccinated in total since their vaccination programme was launched.
According to the Our world in Data the UK has a vaccination rate of 10.1 per 100 people whilst Ireland has vaccinated 2.5 per 100 people. Israel has the highest rate of vaccination with 41.8 per 100 people vaccinated of their 8.5 million population.
The government now says that their aim is to have everyone offered the vaccination by September but that there’s no guarantee.
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