DUBLIN: COVID-19 vaccine registration on the HSE online portal has opened ahead of schedule for 12- to 15-year-olds.
Registration for this age group was scheduled to start today (Thursday), but it went live on Wednesday evening instead.
“Online registration for vaccines for Children and Young People age 12-15 is now available https://vaccine.hse.ie/,” Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said on Twitter.
Parents or legal guardian will need to give consent for their child to receive the vaccine. This can be done online now that the registration portal has been updated to allow parents to provide consent.
When a parent registers their child on the HSE portal, they will receive a text message with a link that allows them to approve parental consent. Parental consent is a mandatory, and if you do not provide consent online, or register for a vaccine over the phone, whoever is accompanying the child to a vaccination centre will need to confirm consent there.
The HSE also said that most children would get an appointment at a mass vaccination centre near their home, or in a pharmacy.
The first jabs are likely to be given to some children as soon as this weekend.
This age group comprises 280,000 children. Evening and weekend vaccination clinics will also be available in an effort to accelerate the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. Children will be vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna vaccine through a vaccination centre.
Deputy CMO urges everyone to get vaccinated
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said that anyone who has not yet been vaccinated in the country should register for a COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Glynn also advised people to seek professional advice if they had any doubts about receiving the vaccine.
“Of course, no vaccine is 100pc protective and some people who have been fully vaccinated will still get infected with, and get sick from, COVID-19. However, the individual risk of a severe illness or death is much lower than if they had not been vaccinated, he said.
“Vaccines work. They are about 80pc effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 disease and they provide approximately 95pc protection against hospitalisation – and this protection against severe disease holds up even in the context of the Delta variant,” he added.
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