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Ireland\u2019s largest hospital has no patients with Covid-19 for the first time since the pandemic began, according to the HSE’s chief executive.<\/p>\nIreland\u2019s largest hospital has no patients with Covid-19 for the first time since the pandemic began, according to the HSE’s chief executive.<\/p>\n
Paul Reid said it was \u201cremarkable\u201d that St James\u2019s Hospital in Dublin has no Covid patients after dealing with a high number of cases earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt grew rapidly during January and February,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we must always remain cautious. We don\u2019t need to look much further than the UK and much further back than yesterday when they had over 7,500 cases.”<\/p>\n
As of last night, there were 76 people hospitalized with the disease throughout the Republic, including 27 people in intensive care.<\/p>\n
Mr Reid said the Republic’s vaccination program was continuing at \u201ca really great pace.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are now over 3.1 million vaccines administered and over 2.2 million people have received their first dose,” he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver 1.1 million people have received a second dose and are fully vaccinated, so about 26 per cent of people are fully vaccinated. Some 57 per cent of the population have received their first dose.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that vaccination uptake remains strong across all age cohorts.<\/p>\n
Mr Reid also said the impact of the recent cyberattack is still felt \u201cprofoundly\u201d on health services.<\/p>\n
He added that the HSE is managing the \u201cextreme risk\u201d across many of its healthcare settings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very difficult for us still in many of our hospitals as we scale up the systems,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still do not have interconnectivity between hospitals. Staff continue to work hard to mitigate the impacts and I want to thank them for that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the road to recovery on this is long and over many weeks to come, but we will do everything we can to protect and provide services to patients.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Reid also said there are a rising number of people attending emergency departments and appealed to people who are not facing emergency health care issues to see a GP or pharmacist.<\/p>\n
It comes after the Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said Ireland is now aiming to have 70 per cent of adults fully vaccinated by the end of July. He said the target was very much dependent on securing sufficient supply.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin said Ireland was set to reach the \u201csignificant milestone\u201d of having one million people fully vaccinated by the end of Thursday.<\/p>\n