562 cases confirmed as HSE chief says adult population could be vaccinated by end of August

Mr Reid added that the HSE is considering further revamp to the vaccine strategy but said that extending vaccination to teenagers is not currently under consideration. Picture: Sam Boal / Photocall Ireland

562 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed this afternoon by Department of Health officials. 

48 patients are receiving treatment for Covid-19 in hospital, an increase of six from yesterday. 

The number of patients in intensive care remains the same at 14. 

Public Health officials confirmed 488 cases of the coronavirus yesterday. 

HSE CEO Reid said the Delta variant was still something of an "unknown" but that the health service was closely monitoring situations in other countries to inform its approach. File Picture: Sam Boal / Photocall Ireland

The latest figures come as the government has said it is considering including antigen testing results as part of the new vaccine certificate.

The public health advice given this week specified only that full vaccination or immunity from Covid due to catching the disease should be used in a domestic Covid certificate, however, the government are considering including negative test results as part of the measures in order to expand restrictions on indoor activity.

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney said antigen tests "may" play a role, but "it's too early to say yet".

"There are I think six EU countries at the moment that allow indoor dining to take place on the basis of people showing that either they're vaccinated or recovered from Covid or that they've tested negative. using an antigen test," he said.

"We are looking at those countries and how they operate that and the success of it, and of course we're speaking to the industry as well to make sure that whatever we decide to do next, we're doing in consultation with them to make sure that it works.

"We'll continue to work with all stakeholders to make the right decisions in the next few weeks, and hopefully we'll be able to reopen indoor activity in an appropriate way that safe.

"We'll certainly will have a decision by July 19, and certainly we'd like to action that decision as soon as possible."

The certificate is likely to take the form of a QR code on a smartphone, and it is not expected that the Gardaí will be involved in the policing of the new measure.

The government is due to meet with hospitality representatives tomorrow who have expressed their wish to have antigen testing involved in the initiative.

Vaccine rollout

Vaccination of those aged 18-34 is due to begin tomorrow as the government races to have more people vaccinated as the more contagious Delta variant takes hold.

CEO of the HSE, Paul Reid said today that over 200,000 one-shot Janssen vaccines are available in July.

"Every 27,500 people or so is another percentage of the population completed, so that really gives us a potential of up to about 5% extra being completed in July so it's very significant for us in terms of full completion of vaccines," he said.

"If we fully utilise all of those 200,000 of Janssen, that can bring us closer to 68% by the end of July.

"The reality of the AstraZeneca is, it's a double dose so they will not see the full benefit potentially in July into August, but everything we're seeing, even if you take potentially 1 million (vaccines) from Romania, that's another 500,000 people fully vaccinated, that's another 12 or 13%.

"So we're putting all this together just now right now but, ultimately, it has real potential to call things forward.

"It could bring us right back to the end of August, early September," for all people to be fully vaccinated, Mr Reid said.

Mr Reid added that the HSE is considering further revamp to the vaccine strategy but said that extending vaccination to teenagers is not currently under consideration, despite newspaper reports saying that the role out of vaccines to teenagers was imminent.

Speaking earlier on Newstalk, he said they are open to revamping the plan - but extending vaccines to 12 to 15 year olds was not on the cards at present.

Late last month, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended that the use of the Pfizer vaccine be expanded to children aged 12 to 15. 

Asked whether extending the vaccine rollout to this age group was under consideration, Mr Reid said this was "not currently built into baseline assumptions" but that any new advice from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) would be included in subsequent versions of the rollout.

Hospitalisations

Later in the interview, Mr Reid said that an increase in hospitalisations as a result of the spread of the Delta Covid-19 variant would be of "extreme concern" to the health service.

He revealed that around 260 of the country's 300 intensive care beds are occupied for various reasons at present, meaning that capacity would become a significant issue if the variant led to more people becoming hospitalised. 

Mr Reid said hospitalisations were "the last line of defence" and that the health service was working hard to strengthen other lines to "mitigate the impact on public health." 

He said the service did not want to return to "the dark days of January" where hospitals were treating large numbers of patients with the virus.