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Covid-19 vaccine could be rolled out in Ireland from January

The Government has said that the Covid-19 vaccine designed by Pfizer and BioNTech could be available in Ireland from early January.

The European Medicines Agency are currently conducting a review of the vaccine with the hope of approving it in the coming weeks.

Should it be approved, Taoiseach Micheál Martin is confident Ireland already has the infrastructure in place to enable the roll-out of the vaccine at the earliest possible convenience.

This news follows an announcement from Northern Ireland’s Health Minister Robin Swann saying that some 12,000 people will get the Covid-19 vaccine in the next two weeks in Northern Ireland.

The Taoiseach spoke of “light at the end of the tunnel” and how 2021 will be “a different year as we emerge from Covid-19”.

The Taoiseach said that healthcare workers, the elderly and nursing home residents with be the first people to receive the vaccine as they are most at risk.

Some €2.5 billion has been spent by the Department of Health to help fight and deal with coronavirus, this takes the total health expenditure this year to over €20 billion. These figures were revealed by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly at the Oireachtas Health Committee.

Minister Donnelly also revealed that the stock levels of PPE equipment/gear by the end of 2020 will be the equivalent of 12 years worth of supply in normal times.

Ireland reported 270 new covid-19 cases yesterday and a further 5 deaths. This took the total death toll in Ireland to 2,074 and the total number of confirmed cases to 73,066.

“Dáil Éireann – Election of Taoiseach – 27 June 2020” by Houses of the Oireachtas is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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