Irish Examiner View: The numbers don’t add up

Vaccine Equality

After a sluggish start, the vaccine roll-out gathered so much pace that Taoiseach Micheál Martin boasted that Ireland had edged ahead of the UK. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie

Number-crunching has been a constant – and necessary – feature of coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. Daily reports of infection rates, deaths and those in ICU beds have, in recent months, included the more optimistic news of the growing numbers of Irish people who have been vaccinated.

After a sluggish start, the roll-out gathered so much pace that Taoiseach Micheál Martin boasted, somewhat smugly, that Ireland had edged ahead of the UK; at the end of July, 72.4% of adults here were fully vaccinated compared to 72.1% in the UK.