DUBLIN: The HSE and the Government have set a target of vaccinating 2.5 million people by the end of July. The aim of fully vaccinating 60% of the Irish population (2.5 million people) comes in the wake of Varadkar’s warning of a possible fourth wave of COVID-19 as the society reopens from next month.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar says the possibility of a fourth wave is high due to increased socialising during the summer, but that advancing vaccination across the country will help reduce the risk of a new wave.
“What’s different now is vaccines, and the vaccines work against all the variants. But the problem is only 20% of our population is fully vaccinated. So what we’re targeting now is to get over 60%, 2.5 million people fully vaccinated by the end of July, and that’s where we need to be,” Mr. Varadkar said.
Meanwhile, HSE said that half of all adults in Ireland have now received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. HSE CEO Paul Reid confirmed that 50% of the adult population has now received their first dose, and 20% have been fully vaccinated.
Mr. Reid said that more than 280,000 vaccines were administered in the last week, and that the HSE plans to administer 300,000 this week. He said that almost 100% of people over the age of 80 and 96% of those in their 70s have been vaccinated. “I think progress for us is quite strong, and we will continue down through the ages,” Mr. Reid said.
Cyber-attack: restoration is in progress
The HSE boss stated that “really good progress” had been made in the restoration of the HSE IT systems in the last 72 hours. He added that more support systems are being used for patients back up and running. Systems for radiotherapy, oncology, radiology and cancer are now back up and running. Some patient administration systems also back, Mr. Reid added.
He said a total of more than 2,000 systems need to be brought back safely. “This is going to be continued slow progress while we get the systems up, it does take time for the services to come up,” he said.
The HSE is currently prioritising the restoration of Tusla systems, as well as endoscopy and some community systems, for next week.
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