Ireland has seen a surge in the number of people registering and receiving their Covid-19 vaccination in the last week.
95,000 people have received their first dose of the life-saving jab in the last five days, according to new figures released by the HSE this morning.
After a pause due to COVAX scheduled maintenance, vaccine data in the HSE’s official vaccination dashboard was unavailable from October 31 to November 3.
The news comes as hospital numbers saw a big drop off overnight.
As of 8am on Wednesday, 460 people are in hospital with the virus.
That’s a drop of 33 since yesterday and represents the lowest number since October 23.
86 people are in the intensive care unit.
Serial testing and the use of vaccine passes in nursing homes are expected to be rolled out in the coming days.
Nursing Homes Ireland CEO Tadhg Daly said he was “pleasantly surprised” to hear Health Minister Stephen Donnelly say on RTÉ’s Prime Time last night that serial testing in nursing homes is to resume.
Mr Daly said there are currently 62 “open outbreaks” in nursing homes across the country but said there were five or fewer cases in 83% of recent outbreaks, which shows that the infection control measures are working while the booster shot is giving residents extra protection.
He said he spoke to Minister Donnelly last night who confirmed to him that serial testing will resume in nursing homes soon.
Mr Daly said he also expects the roll out of vaccine passes for access to visit nursing homes to come in place this week too.
He told RTÉ: “We expect that to be live by this week I’d imagine, we’re just finalising the details.”
Mr Daly also said in some cases “we’ve lost staff” who did not want to get vaccinated and said “we think mandatory vaccination should still be on the agenda.”
