Coronavirus: 600,000 people in North receive first dose of vaccine

More than 600,000 people – a third of Northern Ireland's total population of 1.8 million – have received a first vaccination against Covid-19, the North's health Minister Robin Swan said on Wednesday.

Mr Swann also said that a "significant" amount of new vaccines had arrived in Northern Ireland and currently were being distributed to doctors' surgeries through the North.

“It is the biggest delivery that we have received to date,” he said.

Mr Swann said vaccinating more than 600,000 people was a “landmark” achievement. He added that the pace of the vaccination programme would “accelerate” and he would be announcing the next stage of the rollout early next week.

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Northern Ireland plans to complete the vaccination programme by the early summer.

A dashboard providing daily data on the progress of the vaccination programme in the North was launched by the department on Wednesday. So far, a total of 648,028 doses of vaccine have been administered, which includes 601,101 first doses. There were 6,898 injections in the most recent 24-hour period.

Mr Swann provided details of the vaccinations to date on a day when eight more Covid-19 deaths were recorded in Northern Ireland.

This brings the death toll recorded by his department to 2,087. A further 147 people tested positive for the virus. A total of 212 patients are being treated for Covid-19 in the North’s hospitals, with 29 in intensive care.

Mr Swann also announced the start of the expansion of testing of people in workplaces who were not displaying coronavirus symptoms. This asymptomatic testing would focus on workplaces where employees were providing critical services and could not work from home and would prioritise sectors such as agri-food, essential retail, manufacturing and construction.

The chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said this programme was important as up to a third of people with Covid-19 have no symptoms.

Dr McBride said it was also important that people did not drop their guard in relation to Covid. He particularly appealed to young people not to hold St Patrick’s Day parties next week.

“Some people need to wise up and grow up,” he said. “People are still dealing with the consequences of Covid-19. There are eight families grieving today, there are many more people in hospital. There are family members concerned about the outcome for those individuals. So please, all of us, stay with this.”