The Deputy Chief Medical Officer has stated Ireland is on the cusp of deploying at least two of the vaccines.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has stated that he is hopeful that the COVID-19 vaccines can begin being rolled out across Ireland in the first week of January.
The European Medicines Agency will be meeting on Tuesday, December 29 to give its decision on the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
As reported by RTE, “once that happens [Micheál Martin] hopes that in the following week that the rollout will begin, starting with nursing home residents and healthcare staff.”
Additionally, as reported by Newstalk, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn stated that “Ireland is ‘on the cusp’ of deploying ‘at least two’ COVID-19 vaccines as part of a national vaccination programme.”
Dr Glynn also made sure to reassure the public that no shortcuts were taken in the production and testing of the vaccines, as while there are several steps usually in sequence in the process of creating vaccines, many of these were run simultaneously in this case.
However, the public have been asked not to let their guard down with these announcements, especially in light of Dr Tony Holohan’s statement that the incidence of Covid-19 is rising again following the reporting of 429 new cases on Sunday, December 13.
READ NEXT: WATCH: Dublin Airport shares emotional history of people arriving for Christmas