Nursing home staff and residents are at the top of the queue
The COVID-19 Vaccine Allocation Strategy includes 15 phases for the rollout.
The first phase will see the vaccine offered to everyone living in a long-term care facility who is over the age of 65.
Frontline healthcare workers who are in “direct patient contact” will be offered the jab in the second phase.
Publishing the list this afternoon, the Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said the vaccine would be offered free of charge to everyone in Ireland.
“A key part of the roll-out will be ensuring that those most vulnerable to COVID-19 receive vaccinations first,” he said.
The 15-phase rollout is as follows:
- Residents of long-term care facilities over the age of 65. All residents and staff on-site should be considered for vaccination.
- Frontline healthcare workers in direct patient contact roles.
- People aged 70 and older.
- Remaining frontline healthcare workers.
- People aged 65 to 69-years-old.
- Keyworkers providing services “essential to societal and economic activity.”
- People aged 18 – 64 with underlying health conditions.
- Residents of long-term care facilities aged between 18 and 64.
- People aged between 18 and 64, living or working in crowded places.
- Key workers who can’t avoid a high risk of exposure to COVID-19 (food supply, public transport etc.)
- Primary and secondary school staff.
- People aged 55 to 64.
- Those in “occupations important to the functioning of society” – including those working in entertainment and third-level institutions.
- People aged 18 to 54-years-old.
- Children, teenagers and pregnant women.
It comes as 90 year old Irish Granny Margaret Keenan became the first person in the world to receive the vaccine this morning.
Margaret, who's originally from Enniskillen in Co. Fermanagh, got the Pfizer/BioNTech shot at a hospital in Coventry, England.
