Covid booster vaccines to begin in residential centres next week

The process is likely to take three to four weeks initially, with follow-on visits to vaccinate anyone who cannot be done in this sweep.

People living in residential centres will start receiving booster vaccinations from early next week, the HSE has confirmed.

This follows a recommendation from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee in early April that boosters be given to over-65s and immunocompromised people aged over 12.

The HSE has started contacting centres and a spokeswoman said: “We expect that vaccination in large numbers will commence early next week.” 

It said it hoped to complete the vaccination round “as soon as possible”.

Residents in nursing homes have borne the brunt of the pandemic, with the tide turning dramatically early last year when they were among the first to receive vaccinations.

Tadhg Daly, chief executive of Nursing Homes Ireland, said: “This gives effect to the Niac decision and it is welcome that it is now commencing.” 

He understands the process is likely to take three to four weeks initially, with follow-on visits to vaccinate anyone who cannot be done in this sweep.

The latest report on Covid-19 cases, published on Wednesday, shows one in five newly identified infections last week were among people aged 35 to 44.

However, cases among those aged 65 to 74 rose and made up 9.4% of the weekly total. 

There were 479 new cases among children aged under four and 568 among children aged between five and 12.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) data also shows new cases in Cork made up 11.8% of the weekly total. 

Some 1,390 infections were identified through PCR tests, down by over 1,000 from the week before.

Munster

Limerick had the next highest number of cases in Munster last week at 559, accounting for 4.7% of the national total.

Tipperary saw 455 new cases coming to 3.9% of all cases and in Kerry there were 451 new cases or 3.8% of the national count.

Waterford had 440 new infections, accounting for 3.7% of all cases, and in Clare there were 243 new cases, coming to 2.1% of the total.

Figures for antigen test results are not broken down by county, showing instead a weekly total of 15,141.

The same report shows 114 over-85s were treated in hospitals for the virus last week and 110 people aged 65 to 74.

There were 29 children aged under four in hospitals with Covid-19 and nine aged five to 12, a significant drop from early April when there were 81 across both these ages in hospitals.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said cases were declining in every region of the world.

“After the increase observed in mid-March 2022, the number of new weekly cases in the European region has continued to decline for a month, with just under 2.8m new cases reported, a 25% decrease as compared to the previous week,” a weekly review found.

There have been more than 6m deaths linked to Covid-19, and the US again reported the highest number of new deaths last week at 3,076. It was followed by Russia, the Republic of Korea, Germany, and Italy.