Vaccination of those with underlying conditions to begin

The vaccination of people aged 16 to 69 with conditions that put them at risk of severe Covid-19 disease will begin to receive their vaccines from next week.

Dr Colm Henry, Chief Clinical Officer, said today that the HSE has written to hospitals giving them “a pretty tight deadline” to identify as many of these patients as possible.

He said GPs and advocacy groups will also help to identify patients.

This cohort of patients will receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

Most of them will receive their vaccines in hospital settings, but others may go to a GP practice.

Meanwhile a further 462 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Ireland this evening, 26 of them in Meath,

The National Publi Health Emergency Team said that a further 39 people with Covid-19 have died.

This brings the Covid-19 death toll to 4,396 and the total number of confirmed cases to 221,649.

The number of patients with the virus being treated in intensive is down seven at 107. There are 460 Covid-19 patients in hospital, with 26 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

Of the cases notified today:

224 are men / 236 are women

69% are under 45 years of age

The median age is 31 years old

207 in Dublin, 29 in Cork, 26 in Meath, 20 in Kildare, 18 in Galway and the remaining 162 cases are spread across all other counties.

As of 1st March 446,474 doses of vaccine have been administered in Ireland.

303,550 people have received their first dose, while 142,924 people have received their second dose.