James Cox
The HSE says it plans to accommodate 3,000 people a day at its mass vaccination clinic at the Aviva Stadium by the end of this month.
Roughly 2,000 high risk patients are receiving their first dose at the centre in Dublin this bank holiday weekend.
It is operating alongside the Helix, while other centres will begin opening around the country tomorrow.
The HSE's vaccination lead in community healthcare east, Mary Fitzpatrick, says capacity at the Aviva will be increased over the coming weeks.
COVID-19 vaccinations are happening all around the country today. Some pictures from the @AVIVAStadium where people with an underlying medical condition and very high risk got their #CovidVaccine. #HoldFirm pic.twitter.com/CU2VAfxnKr
— HSE Ireland (@HSELive) April 4, 2021
“At the moment we're vaccinating smaller numbers because we want to give them time to go through,” she explained. “We will be going up to 3,000 per day, we're hoping to be moving towards that target by the end of April.”
Meanwhile, the head of the HSE says reports that some people are jumping the queue for a Covid-19 vaccine are “very frustrating”.
It comes amid concern ineligible people received a jab in Cohort 2, instead of frontline healthcare workers.
Paul Reid says there was a degree of trust early in the vaccine programme and stricter validation measures are being put in place.
He says to see the trust breached is disappointing.
“The vast majority of the public are waiting their turn for the vaccine to come to them, so it is very frustrating, it's annoying, and it breaches the basic tenet of what our programme is all about when incidents like that and other high profile incidents we've heard about happened.”
As of April 1st, 893,375 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland:
- 636,963 people have received their first dose.
- 256,412 people have received their second dose.
