Over two thirds of eligible adults will have received one dose of Covid-19 vaccine by this weekend, while one third will have been fully vaccinated, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.
“This current week is the biggest week yet in administration of vaccines with 330,000 doses being administered.
“Yesterday was the biggest single day yet (for vaccines), with 58,000 administered.
“By the end of the weekend, over 3.5 million vaccine doses will have been administered.
“It’s a phenomenal achievement for an unprecedented vaccine programme,” he told journalists on Friday.
Chief medical officers on both sides of the border met on Friday to discuss concerns over the Delta variant.
Mr Martin said they are not contemplating restrictions on travel between Northern Ireland and the Republic. He added: “Overall the CMO was very positive yesterday ... we are not contemplating that right now but obviously public health will advise in accordance with the prevailing situation. We will see the outcome of that meeting.”
Prof Philip Nolan, chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) epidemiological modelling advisory group, noted "we are nearly there" in a Twitter posting on Friday evening.
He noted there was hope and optimism as we come to the end of the week with the 14-day cumulative incidence of disease below 100 cases per 100,000 of the population for the first time since December 17th last year.
The seven-day moving average case count had also fallen, by 27 per cent over the past five Fridays, he said, from an average of 442 cases on Friday May 21st to an average of 321 on Friday June 18th.
The numbers of people in hospital and ICU are less than half what they were six weeks ago, and new admissions are low with on average seven new admissions to hospital per day and two admissions to ICU every five days, he said.
The incidence of disease was now falling in those aged 40-46 years as vaccines take effect, he added.
“Interestingly, incidence has also fallen significantly in children of school-going age (primary and secondary) over the last three weeks. Incidence in those aged 19-24 years remains high”.
He urged people to “stick to the simple measures to prevent spread” in the few weeks left until all have had the opportunity to be vaccinated.
