Nursing homes to begin vaccinating on January 7 as Holohan warns of 'grave concern' at rising case numbers

In a letter dated December 28, Dr Tony Holohan, chief medical officer, expressed 'grave concern' over case-number projections. Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

Residents at nursing homes in Tipperary, Clare, and Kerry will be among the first to receive a Covid-19 vaccine next week.

Twenty-five homes will be visited by vaccine teams starting on Monday, as the rollout begins a week earlier than had been planned.

This comes as the chief medical officer said that two-thirds of deaths related to Covid-19 in December occurred in nursing homes and hospitals.

Head of Nursing Homes Ireland, Tadhg Daly, welcomed the vaccine programme as “a beacon of light”.

“The vaccine starting next week is very positive,” he said. "We need to do the rollout safely."

Tadhg Daly of Nursing Homes Ireland. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

The first homes will be a mix of private, public, and voluntary centres, starting with two in Dublin.

On January 7, residents and staff at the Hospital of the Assumption in Thurles, Tipperary; Regina House Community Nursing Unit, Clare; and the Killarney Community Hospitals (Fuschia, Hawthorn, and Heather Wards) in Kerry will get their first shot.

The second and final dose will be given 21 days later. A full schedule for all 580 nursing homes in the country will be available from January 11.

There have been calls for a 24-hour rollout programme, but Mr Daly said this would not be suitable in a nursing home.

Consent forms are currently being signed by residents and, like all vaccines, this one can only be given when a resident or an appropriate health professional agrees it is the best course of action.

Each resident received an information leaflet on the vaccine, which had to be done before vaccinations could start.

He did say, however: “The ICT [Information and Communications Technology] is a little behind, our members are finding that. We are still dealing with Excel sheets this week anyway.” 

In a letter dated December 28, to health minister Stephen Donnelly, Dr Tony Holohan confirmed that as of that day there had been 101 deaths in December and of these, 33 associated with nursing homes outbreaks and 33 with hospital outbreaks.

He said the epidemiological profile of Covid-19 had continued to deteriorate very substantially since his letter of December 23, and is giving ongoing cause for “grave concern”.

Dr Holohan said there were 360 confirmed Covid-19 cases in hospital, compared with a previous peak of 354 on October 27.

He said this represented a 90% increase in the 16 days since there were 190 on December 12.

“There were 44 new confirmed cases in hospital in the 24 hours to 8am this morning, December 28, and this represents the second day in a row of very substantial increases; there has not been a similar increase in new confirmed cases in hospital since April 2020,” he said.

In his stark letter, Dr Holohan said while the data he was presenting to Government demonstrated “significant ongoing deterioration” in the profile of the disease, it should be noted that the actual situation is likely to be worse than what is reported.

This is because of the very substantial decrease in numbers presenting for testing on December 26, and the under-reporting of positive case numbers since Christmas Eve.

“It is estimated that, including today’s reported numbers, up to an additional 1,400 cases should have been reported over the past four days which have not yet been notified,” he said.