Healthcare workers and over-70s to attend first mass vaccination centres

Booths where people will receive their vaccine at the new mass vaccination clinic in the City Hall, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

Healthcare workers and the over-70s will attend the country's first mass vaccination centres within days, as efforts are ramped up to inoculate large sections of the population following a "rocky" start to the roll-out programme.

The Irish Examiner can give the first glimpse inside a mass vaccination centre in Cork City Hall, where jabs are expected to be given to healthcare workers this week.

The centre will then be used to administer vaccines to the over-70s. 

Health officials have been forced to reassess the vaccine roll-out schedule due to issues with supply and new clinical advice against using the AstraZeneca vaccine in the over-70s. 

The Government had initially hoped that over-70s would receive their Covid-19 vaccines by the end of March, but this has been pushed back to mid-May.

"Our plan had always been to complete by the end of March, but it looks like the first dose will be completed by the middle of April, and the second dose will be completed by the middle of May," said HSE chief executive Paul Reid.

The new timeline comes as a further 12 deaths related to Covid-19 were reported, as well as 1,024 new cases.

The next phase of the rollout will start with the over-85s a week from today when GPs are expected to join the vaccination effort.

A deal has been worked out between GPs and the Irish Medical Organisation which will see most over-70s get their jabs from local surgeries, with large vaccine hubs also set up in Cork, Dublin, and Galway.

Workers setting up the mass vaccination clinic in the City Hall, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

The Irish Examiner has the first pictures inside one of the HSE’s mass vaccination hubs which will be used to vaccinate over-70s.

Dozens of individual booths have been constructed in the concert hall of Cork City Hall, one of three GP-led vaccination hubs to be in place from this week, with plans for up to 40 more similar hubs around the country in the weeks ahead. 

The hubs will all range in size and scale, but the City Hall facility is set to be one of the largest in the national network. 

It is understood the facility could be brought into use within days to vaccinate HSE frontline staff with the AstraZeneca vaccine following a delivery of 21,000 doses to Ireland last weekend.

Booths where people will receive their vaccine at the new mass vaccination clinic in the City Hall, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

"In simple terms, of about 1,300 GPs across the country, over 900 will carry out vaccinations of those over 70 in their own practice," said Mr Reid.

"Then there will be the three bigger vaccination centres in Dublin, Cork, and Galway that we have organised already. The remaining will be a kind of buddying-up system where we have bigger practices and GPs who will buddy-up together.

"Ultimately those hubs would be GP-led, with practice staff.

"Everything about the first quarter of the vaccine programme has been a rocky road, but I'm really quite confident as we get into the second quarter we will begin to see more predictability coming around the vaccine.

"I always qualify any predictions we make will be based on supply, but everything we have got so far has been administered in a very safe, effective, and timely manner."

As well as the Cork City Hall vaccination centre, talks are at an advanced stage about developing similar facilities in Kilkenny and Carlow.

The Defence Forces have offered help to the HSE to transport the most vulnerable to their vaccination centres.