Mr. Paul Reid:

The difference being that 12,500 were distributed to GPs, which is the equivalent of 25,000 because a further 12,500 has to be kept back. A further 6,000 were distributed last week to GPs and that requires another 6,000 to be held back in the fridge. The Moderna vaccines will be administered through GPs, working through the 80 to 84 year olds.

On the question around messaging for the over 70 and 85 year olds, the Deputy is correct that we are aiming to get through first vaccination of all of the over 70s before the middle of April, with the second vaccination to be completed before the middle of May. We have started doing that on an incremental basis. I fully accept what the Deputy says in terms of expectation. We have gone out fairly regularly and announced what group we were doing next and what numbers were in each group. The figure for the 85 to 90 age group was 72,500. The figure for the group we are progressing through now, which is the 80 to 84 year olds, is 90,000. We know there are 72,500 in the 85 plus age group and we have probably done over 96,000 of those aged 70 and over. GPs are administering some vaccines to the 80 to 85 year olds this week, as they did for some in the previous week, but in the case of a person in the 80 to 84 year old category whose husband, wife or partner is, for example, 87 years old where there are potential extra doses available they have the facility to vaccinate in parallel. As we move through the other cohorts, that will happen as well. I take on board the Deputy's comments.

On the question regarding cohort 4, before I ask my colleague, Dr. Henry, to respond, I would like to make two brief points. The advice from the national immunisation advisory committee remains that age is the priority for vaccination. We should continue with our vaccination programme until we get through all of those aged 70 years and over. Cohort 4 is in sequencing after we get to all of those. However, we are very conscious of the medically vulnerable and we are anxious to get to them as soon as we can. The 10,000 figure is just to start the process this week, while we are analysing the data on which Dr. Henry will elaborate for the Deputy.