Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly with Covid-19 vaccinators Sinead O’Brien and Rachael Kennedy during the minister’s visit to the vaccination centre at the Abbey Court Hotel, Nenagh, last Thursday. Photo: Brian Arthur.

Covid on the rise again in North Tipp

Published: Fri 6 Aug 2021, 8:35 AM

A walk-in vaccination service was offered in Nenagh last weekend as part of a concerted national effort to maximise uptake against rising case numbers of Covid-19.

All parts of North Tipperary have recorded increases in confirmed cases of the virus in recent weeks and the HSE’s community testing centre in Nenagh has become quite busy again, with a steady rise in tests carried out over the month of July.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly visited the vaccination centre at the Abbey Court Hotel last Thursday to meet the local vaccination team, who have administered a total of 554 vaccinations to walk-in visitors over the bank holiday weekend. Some 3,900 were delivered in the week before the minister’s visit.

The visit coincided with the announcement by UL Hospitals Group of walk-in vaccination clinics across the region for the bank holiday weekend. First-dose Pfizer vaccination against Covid-19 was made available in Nenagh, Limerick and Ennis for anyone in the region aged 16 years and over who had not yet been vaccinated. Second doses for those who attended will be administered after four weeks.

The progress is being made against a backdrop of rising numbers of Covid-19 cases in each of the Local Electoral Areas (LEAs) in North Tipperary. Thurles saw the biggest the increase, with the most recent figures indicating a rise from 18 confirmed cases in the period July 6-19 to 42 cases by July 26.

Newport also saw a considerable rise from 25 to 48 cases in that period. In Nenagh the number of confirmed cases was up from 14 to 22 while Roscrea-Templemore LEA also recorded an increase, 9 to 20.

The increasing case numbers are reflected in the increased activity at the HSE’s community testing centre at Tyone, where the number of tests have been rising steadily since the end of June [see graph on page 6]. A total of 1,811 tests were carried out in the period July 12 to 25 alone.

A total of 917 tests were carried out at the Nenagh centre in the week ending July 25, representing an increase in the number of tests for the fifth week in a row. This level of testing is still well below the spike of 2,684 tests carried out in late April/early May, which followed a community outbreak of Covid-19 in Nenagh and was the busiest week at the centre, which opened in December.

MINISTER’S VISIT

Minister Donnelly toured each of the three vaccination centres in the Mid West last week to talk to the vaccinators, who are at the frontline of the ongoing effort by UL Hospitals Group to ensure that every person in the region who is eligible to be vaccinated against Covid-19 receives their vaccination. With vaccination at an advanced stage nationally and locally, almost 290,000 doses of vaccine have been delivered under the UL Hospitals Group vaccination programme to date.

A total of 2,649 people received first-dose Pfizer vaccines at the three walk-in clinics in the Mid-West over the Bank Holiday Weekend. This included 554 at the Abbey Court Hotel.

In the week ending July 25, a total of 17,448 doses of Covid-19 vaccine were dispensed across the vaccination centres at Limerick Racecourse (10,195), Ennis (3,353) and Nenagh (3,900). This does not include the vaccination work undertaken in the region by HSE Mid-West Community Healthcare, the National Ambulance Service, GPs and pharmacists.