A Covid-19 test centre in north Dublin has recorded a positivity rate of 5.2 per cent among those who presented for testing for the virus in recent days.
The Finglas testing facility, at the City of Dublin Education and Training Board premises, had the highest positivity rate of the seven walk-in test centres that opened last week.
As of Monday morning it had a test positivity rate of 5.2 per cent. This compares to an average positivity rate among those tested across the country of 3.2 per cent over the past seven days.
The seven centres opened late last week are in Finglas, Balbriggan, Crumlin, Navan, Athlone, Ballinasloe and Naas.
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They are aimed at finding asymptomatic cases of the virus in the community.
Meanwhile, the millionth Covid-19 vaccine was delivered to the Health Service Executive last Thursday and will be administered later this week, according to HSE chief executive Paul Reid.
On Monday evening Mr Reid said the HSE continues to demonstrate it will administer “whatever supplies we get as efficiently as possible”.
As of Friday, 923,878 doses of Covid-19 vaccine had been administered across the State, with 655,292 people getting their first dose and 268,586 receiving their second.
Almost 42,000 people aged 16 to 69 and at high risk of severe disease from Covid-19 had received their first dose, while 91 had been fully vaccinated as of Friday last, according to official figures. It is estimated there are up to 150,000 medically vulnerable people in this fourth cohort for vaccination.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said the vaccination programme will be “accelerated over the next few weeks”.
He said that by the end of June the vast vast majority – more than 80 per cent – of people will be offered their first dose.
In April people will start to see a “normalisation, if you like, or the beginning of the way out”, he said, as restrictions ease and the vaccine rollout ramps up.
There were 260 people with the virus in hospital on Monday, 12 more than the previous day, but a reduction of 71 from seven days ago. The number of people with the virus in intensive care remained stable at 58, which is a drop of 12 from the week ago.
No deaths and 320 new cases were reported by the National Public Health Emergency Team on Monday.
In Northern Ireland two people died from the virus over a 48-hour period, while a total of 89 tested positive for the virus, the Department of Health confirmed on Monday. It had not released figures on Easter Sunday.
Rollout problems
Chairman of the general practitioners committee of the Irish Medical Organisation Denis McCauley said vaccine deliveries have been smooth for the “vast majority” of family practices over the last two weeks. At the beginning of the GP rollout communication was “very poor”, but recently clinics have been told five to seven days in advance of the exact number of expected doses, he said.
He said it was “naturally a big issue for a practice” if a delivery does not show up on time.
One Kildare-based GP said he was forced to cancel at the last minute vaccinations scheduled for Monday afternoon because the doses did not arrive when planned. Dr Adrian McGoldrick took to social media to speak about how “utterly frustrating” it was to have to cancel clinics when patients had begun to arrive. However, later in the day he said the deliveries came hours after scheduled and staff were able to ring patients to return for belated appointments.
