The second quarter of the year may be the “big quarter” for Ireland’s vaccine programme, according to the Chair of COVID-19 vaccine taskforce.

Professor Brian MacCraith was speaking as Cabinet prepares to sign off on the purchase of an extra 875,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine.

It brings Ireland’s order from the US firm up to around 1.76 million doses – including the 880,000 the country was already due to receive under the EUs Advance Purchase Agreement.

Professor MacCraith said the news is “very positive amidst a lot of uncertainty.”

He said it is extremely difficult to predict how soon the vulnerable groups in society can be vaccinated – noting that Ireland’s expected vaccine supply has changed five times since last Friday alone.

“I think everyone has learned the lesson in recent weeks that making precise predictions in a sea of uncertainty is really not a wise game,” he said. “It is not very prudent.

“We are targeting very close to Denmark in terms of the rollout rate so it will be interesting to see how things are in July.”

"Big quarter"

He voiced hope that the schedule can be significantly ramped up to make Quarter Two the “big quarter” for the programme.

“You can be thinking of up to one million, or more indeed, vaccine doses per month arriving in that period,” he said. “You can be thinking of that.

“Again, if we stick, as we have done so far, to our principal of administering vaccines as soon as they arrive, you can be talking about administering up to 250,000 vaccine doses per week.

“That is where all of our planning is taking place.”

Vaccinated

Professor MacCraith said more than half-a-million people could be vaccinated by the end of March – if the country receives the 1.4 million doses it was due to get as of last week.

“If we had 1.4 million doses, in one particular model, we would have 530,000 people getting two doses and about 190,000 people getting a single dose,” he said.

He said this would translate into:

• 75,000 people in long-term care facilities – residents and staff - fully vaccinated.
• 150,000 frontline healthcare workers fully vaccinated.
• 300,000 over-70s fully vaccinated.
• Almost 200,000 over-70s who have received their first dose.

“Now that is not a prediction,” he said. “That is a scenario for a particular set of conditions that have probably changed since I did them.”

He said the scenario is not unrealistic if things go well with the Astrazeneca and Moderna orders.

Over-85s

Professor MacCraith said people over the age of 85 will soon be getting a call from their GP to come in for their first vaccine appointment.

“I think this is I think a really important development,” he said.

“The focus in Ireland has been sensibly on those who are most vulnerable and those who are most at risk of exposure.

“I think when we complete that third grouping of the over-70s in the community, we will see a significant change in illness, in hospitalisations and, thankfully and most importantly, in mortality.”

He said the over-85s are very, very excited about the prospect of getting the vaccine, with GP clinics “inundated with calls.”

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