Mass Covid-19 vaccination centre to open in Belfast at end of March

Thursday, 18 March 2021 10:59

By Hannah Spratt @Radio_han

By PA reporter

A mass vaccination centre at Belfast’s SSE Arena is due to open at the end of March.

Patricia Donnelly head of the vaccination rollout here said the initial hope was that by the time the centre began operating the vaccine would be on offer to the over-40 age cohort.

She said the over-40s were now likely to have to wait for a further fortnight.

“We have scaled down slightly the opening weeks in the SSE Arena,” she said.

“It has the capacity for 40,000 (a week) but in the first weeks we’re looking at 11,000 building up to 20,000 and then up to 30,000 in subsequent weeks.”

Ms Donnelly added: “We had hoped by the time we would launch the SSE Arena that we would be opening to the over-40s. I think that will be maybe delayed by two weeks but we’ll keep that under review and it will very much depend on the remaining deliveries that we get from AstraZeneca.”

Ms Donnelly continued: “We have tried to find some mitigation through further use of the Pfizer vaccine. So, it will slightly delay it, but it won’t I think reduce our plans overall.”

Patricia Donnelly, the head of the vaccine rollout in Northern Ireland, said issues with AstraZeneca supply lines across the UK will not have a huge impact on the timeline for administering jabs in the region.

Ms Donnelly told the Assembly’s Health committee that plans had been flexed to make more use of Pfizer jabs pending the arrival of further AstraZeneca stock.

She said all first jab appointments already booked will be honoured and those expecting a second jab will also receive it.

Pictured - Patricia Donnelly

Ms Donnelly said more people would continue to get first jabs in April but at a slightly reduced rate.

She said the delivery issues could knock back the rollout plan by four weeks in a “worst case scenario” but said the delay was more likely to be around two weeks.

“I think, worst case scenario, it probably puts us back by four weeks,” she told the committee.

“The mitigation measures that we put in place we hope will only delay us by two weeks, so it won’t have a huge impact.”