Vaccine target for over-85s will not be met: IMO

A LARGE number of people aged 85 and over were let down yesterday, after they were told that a promised delivery of Covid-19 vaccine to their GPs either failed to arrive, or had too few doses.

Dr Denis McCauley of the Irish Medical Organisation said around 10 to 15 practices were left with no vaccine or inadequate supplies.

“These are a group of patients who are very vulnerable and very keen. You do not want to disappoint them.”

He said the target to have all over-85s vaccinated at the end of this week will not be met – and around 1,373 patients in smaller GP practices will wait until next week because of problems in “buddying up” with other doctors.

GPs are also to finalise their list of housebound patients so the HSE can bring the vaccine to them.

He said HSE communication with GPs needs to be improved.

Last week doctors were given just 48 hours notice of delivery. This week it has been even less.

“Having said that, the vast majority of over-85s will be vaccinated this week. But it is going to become problematic when GPs have to give first and second doses to the over70s. I will have 700 patients to vaccinate in the next phase. GPs need a week’s notice of supplies.”

Dr McCauley was speaking after the HSE missed its target of administering 100,000 vaccines last week, due to supply issues with Oxford AstraZeneca. This week will see around 90,000 doses administered.

It comes as a new study involving Irish-born Prof Damien

Tully of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine warned there needs to be even more prompt and efficient vaccine delivery due to the prevalence of the more infectious UK variant.

The study, published in Science, said there needs to be wider vaccine coverage to secure herd immunity. The latest report on last week’s outbreaks shows the influence of the UK variant, with big jumps in clusters in private homes and also among students. There was also a rise in outbreaks in childcare facilities, workplaces and in special needs schools.

The virus spreads more easily in households, and there was more than a doubling of family outbreaks to 135.

There were 61 new outbreaks associated with students in different settings.

The number of outbreaks in childcare rose to 15 compared to nine the previous week.

The positivity rate in these childcare settings is much higher than before Christmas and stands at 14.4pc.

It come as 25 more Covid-19 related deaths were reported yesterday with 566 new cases. This was up from 359 on Tuesday.

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said key disease indicators continue to decline, but with outbreaks in extended families, workplaces and in the community, we need to keep up our guard against the UK variant.

There was a further fall in Covid-19 hospitalised patients – down to 489 with 144 in intensive care. A drop of two in a day.

The cases included 233 in Dublin, 37 in Kildare, 30 in Meath, 25 in Donegal, 24 in Westmeath, with the remaining 217 cases are spread across all other counties.