'Huge response' as more than 40,000 children vaccinated over the weekend
Kevin Mckeon, 14, receives his first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine from vaccinator Geraldine Flynn at the Citywest vaccination centre in Dublin on Saturday.
More than 40,000 children were vaccinated over the weekend, as the rollout continues to ramp up in mass vaccination centres, GP practices and pharmacies.
And new data presented by the Irish College of General Practitioners to GPs on Monday shows 91% of all over-16s in Ireland have now registered for a vaccine in a sign the roll-out will continue at this high level.
Up to Sunday evening, more than 6.3m doses had been given across all age groups, with over 81% of the adult population fully vaccinated already.
Dr Denis McCauley, chair of the GP committee with the Irish Medical Organisation, welcomed the good news, and said he expected a high take-up among the 12 to 15 year olds.
“You can see that the initial reaction to the 12-15s is similarly positive, I think the 13 and 14-year-olds are telling their parents they want to get vaccinated,” he said.
These vaccinations are available through GPs, but he said in smaller numbers than for the older groups. Up to this week, 650 practices are still involved, but he expects more families to take children to the mass vaccination centres going forward.
Up to this point GPs have given more than 2m doses or about one-third of the total amount, mainly relying on the Pfizer jabs and delivering vaccine clinics in the evening and at weekends.
About 40 practices were giving the AstraZeneca vaccines, and he said they have now used this up in administering second doses.
Dr McCauley, a GP in Co Donegal, said GPs were now mostly seeing new Covid-19 cases in unvaccinated people.
In Midleton, Co Cork, the demand for children’s vaccination is looking very strong, according to supervisory pharmacist Conor Neligan at Brosnan’s Pharmacy.
He said they saw “a huge response” from over-18s and are preparing for another busy campaign.
“There’s lots of parents asking about it already,” Mr Neligan said.
“I think with the schools going back soon people are taking the initiative themselves and trying to get their children vaccinated as soon as they can.”
Parents have been phoning the pharmacy or dropping in themselves to ask about appointments, and also to get advice.
“They’re asking us our opinion on whether they should be getting the kids vaccinated,” Mr Neligan said.
“I would advise people it seems to be the safer option to get vaccinated rather than not.”
He welcomes vaccine queries from concerned parents, saying: “The information isn’t as widely available as it probably should be, we are keeping our ear to the ground.”
Brosnan’s Pharmacy is currently finishing vaccinations for over-18s, having built up a waiting list of 600 patients on just the opening day of that campaign.
Mr Neligan expects to start vaccinating children next week.
“I would encourage people to get vaccinated especially because of the risk of going back to schools. The testing has been done on these vaccines. It is safe from what we can see so far and it is a whole lot safer than actually getting the disease,” he said.
Over-55s can still get the single-shot Janssen vaccine at pharmacies, as can those aged 18 to 34 across over 700 pharmacies.
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