Covid-19 vaccination programme to commence in New Year

Mon, 21 Dec 2020

Vaccination of health and care staff Island-wide will begin on 4 January 2021.

The first batch of the world’s first proven safe and effective vaccine against coronavirus arrived in the Island last Wednesday and is safely and securely stored at minus 70 degrees.

Each of the two trays received contains 975 doses of the vaccine, and under current protocols trays cannot be split. This means almost 1000 doses must be defrosted, carefully transported and prepared for putting into arms within a limited time frame.

In order to proceed, a number of complex legal issues and professional authorisations from paperwork only made available by the UK in the last working week, need to be finalised. 
 
Modelling by the department’s Vaccination Programme Board has concluded that three days are required to deliver vaccine to the first cohort of recipients and six weeks in total for the first few priority groups, depending on vaccine delivery.
 

---