THE health minister has been asked to allow nursing home residents to choose a loved one to participate in the Covid-19 vaccination program when it rolls out in January.
The proposal means that each of the country’s 30,000 nursing home residents would nominate one family member or friend as a “vaccine buddy” to ensure that they can still receive visitors while waiting for the rest of the population to catch up with the vaccination program.
The trade group, Nursing Homes Ireland, raised the issue with Health Minister Stephen Donnelly last week to ask him to consider the proposals. Tadhg Daly, the CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland, said they wanted the measure to be introduced in the early stages of the vaccination program to ensure the well-being of residents.
The Sunday Independent can reveal that the first deliveries of the vaccine to the state – expected in early January – will be enough to immunize all nursing home residents and care home workers in the country, according to those working on the plan.
The Pfizer vaccine, developed with BioNTech, is pending conditional approval by the European Medicines Agency on December 29, and the first batches are expected to be delivered to Ireland very shortly thereafter.
The first batch of the vaccine – which requires two doses – will contain 300,000 doses, which is enough to inoculate 150,000 people. If, as is widely expected, the vaccine is approved, it is possible that by the end of January tens of thousands of the most vulnerable in the country – who have received both doses three to four weeks apart – could be vaccinated against Covid-19 by the end of January.
However, it is expected that mass vaccination will not begin until there are enough vaccines in the country.
Meanwhile, the National Ambulance Service is expected to play a key role in the rapid delivery of the vaccine to staff and residents of nursing homes in January.
“The national ambulance crew have competencies and training in how to administer injections and have done a fantastic job of conducting 300,000 tests in the community,” said a source.
Plans for the introduction of vaccines have intensified as the National Covid-19 Vaccine Task Force prepares to present an implementation plan to the government on Friday.
The armed forces have confirmed that the most senior army commander, Lt Col Louis Flynn, is part of the task force to “support the Health Service Executive in future Covid-19-related duties.”
Informed sources said the armed forces are expected to play a key role in the logistics rollout. Members of the armed forces are expected to assist in the distribution of the vaccine to community testing centers that will be converted into vaccine testing centers.
Military medical personnel trained in the first wave of the pandemic in administering patients for Covid-19 will be trained in the administration of vaccines, the source said.
The Health Service Executive is also restructuring its own internal Covid-19 Immunization Implementation Working Group, in a move that has surprised stakeholders.
Members were informed last week that pending restructuring, a scheduled meeting for tomorrow has been postponed and that subgroups will be accommodated.
In response to questions this weekend, the HSE said, “All HSE work on immunization is progressing and we continue to work with the High Level Task Force on Covid-19 vaccination led by Prof. Brian MacCraith.”
The exact details of who gets priority with the vaccine will likely be determined by the cabinet this week.
Sources said ministers, despite their vital employee status, don’t expect to jump in line, though one minister privately speculated that President Michael D Higgins, 79, could be vaccinated in the first wave.
Last Thursday, the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) considered a joint document from the Department of Health and National Immunization Advisory Council establishing a preliminary vaccine priority list. Prioritization, also called sequencing, will be based on the groups most vulnerable to the virus and the assignment will depend on the efficacy of each vaccine in different types of people.
Based on that logic, most expect the government to mean that residents and staff of nursing and care homes come first, followed by primary care workers and the elderly with underlying health problems.
Officials believe a tracking system will be crucial to monitor mass vaccinations of the population once that phase of the program begins.
Officials do not expect a National Immunization Information System, which the HSE is currently working on, to be operational on time, but as it is acknowledged, “We do need an IT system.”
This system will be used to schedule people for vaccination, record some of their personal information and list the vaccine they have received. It will also need to generate an invitation to come back for a second dose if needed, depending on the vaccine they are getting. Maintaining such a database may require the use of someone’s PPS number, but this has not yet been decided by the task force advising on data and privacy issues.
People will also have to be able to prove that they have been vaccinated – a so-called vaccine passport – but the exact nature of this is not yet clear.
Separately, the latest Kantar poll reveals that just over half of the population (52%) has expressed concerns about taking the vaccine. Some respondents are concerned about the haste with which the vaccine was developed. While for others there is a feeling that this may be too good to be true.
Those who express more concern are more likely to be women (57%), those lower on the socio-economic ladder (C2Des – 56%) and those living in Connacht / Ulster (56%). Conversely, those most confident in the vaccine are professional classes (ABs – 50%), older (46%), males, and Dubliners (45% and 43%, respectively).
This comes as it was announced last night that an additional 13 people in Ireland have died from Covid-19, according to figures released last night. The Health Protection Surveillance Center said it has also been notified of an additional 456 confirmed cases of the virus, the largest daily total since Nov. 16.
It means that there have been 2,099 Covid-19-related deaths in Ireland since the start of the pandemic and there have been 2,048 confirmed cases in the past week.
Yesterday at 2:00 pm, 231 Covid-19 patients were in the hospital, including 28 patients in intensive care. Five patients have been hospitalized in the past 24 hours.
197 of the new cases are in Dublin.
Donegal has reported 37 new cases. There were 33 in Limerick, 21 in Louth, 20 in Kilkenny and the remaining 148 cases are spread across 21 other counties.
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