The first delivery of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 has arrived into Ireland, CEO of the HSE Paul Reid shared.
Taking to Twitter to share the news, Reid wrote: “An early morning start to a momentous day. Heading off to take receipt of the first delivery of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for the HSE,” Reid said.
“There will be better days ahead for sure. For now, #StaySafe,” he said.
An early morning start to a momentous day. Heading off to take recepit of the first delivery of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine for the HSE. There will be better days ahead for sure. For now, #StaySafe. @HSELive #COVID19
— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) December 26, 2020
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said that tens of thousands of doses of the vaccine will arrive into the country from early January.
Under the plan for the rollout of the vaccine, residents of long-term care facilities over the age of 65 and frontline healthcare workers in direct contact with patients will be first in line.
People aged 85 and older and those aged 70 and older will be next to receive the vaccine, followed by other healthcare workers and people aged between 65 and 69.
Its arrived! Taking delivery of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine into our Cold Chain Storage this morning. We can now have a "twin track" approach to our response to #COVID19. Public health measures along with the vaccine, for a brighter future. @HSELive pic.twitter.com/hNzESqi0Wp
— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) December 26, 2020
Professor Luke O'Neill recently vouched for the safety of this vaccine on the Pat Kenny Show.
He told Pat: The great news is the safety holds up - this is a very safe vaccine."
"It's alarming in a way how wonderful this is - why couldn't we have done this with other infectious diseases? If we mobilised behind malaria like this, malaria could be gone.
"We're learning from COVID how to mobilise a vaccination campaign."
In terms of a national rollout, Taoiseach Martin has assured that normal life will not return until the summer at the earliest and the return to normal will be “tentative”.
“I think the first six months of 2021 will see improvements but we certainly won’t have normality in the first six months as we knew it,” he told the Dáil.
He also said that European Union leaders had been briefed by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen that manufacturing vaccines “will ramp up certainly [in] March onwards and she would have identified May-June as critical months in terms of high volumes of vaccines coming in”.
He said: “So I think from the summer on, I think we’ll see a degree of normality returning. But I can’t be definite about that."
