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Vaccine suspension was a setback, but only time will tell how big

This one-week interruption has been a setback.

Just how big a setback depends on how long it will take to begin administrating AstraZeneca jabs again and, by extension, how long it will take to get the vaccination roll-out back on track.

The Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, said the HSE is this evening updating the information leaflet and clinicians, and "will be administering the vaccine this weekend".

In terms of catching up, the Labour leader Alan Kelly has pointed out that Government has said it has the capacity for 120,000 doses a week – meaning, he says, that should take just a couple of days.

He has put the Government on notice that failure to catch up within a week would raise concerns around whether the infrastructure and capacity is there for the ramping up of the programme to the one million doses a month that have been promised. 

Despite this evening's announcement, pressure remains on the supply side.

No doubt conscious of the need to build public confidence in the programme, the Taoiseach has once again been stressing that the medium-term outlook is brighter. 

Speaking in Cork earlier, he said the volume of vaccines will increase very significantly over the second quarter "and we will be in a good space by the halfway mark of the year."

With the risk that the latest interruption could prompt vaccine hesitancy, Mr Martin said he himself would, of course, be happy to take the AstraZeneca vaccine.


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