One-in-five children aged 12-15 registered for a Covid vaccine in first 48 hours

A total of 23pc of children aged 12-15 have registered for the Covid-19 vaccine since the HSE portal opened on Wednesday, HSE boss Paul Reid has said. 

Almost 65,000 children have registered on the portal so far out of 280,000 in this age group.

According to Mr Reid many of these have already received an appointment for the coming weekend.

He also announced that 80pc of Ireland’s adult population are fully vaccinated and “practically” 90pc are partially vaccinated.

“As of this morning for the 12 to 15’s, almost 65,000 have registered on the online system,” he said on RTE Radio One’s Morning Ireland.

"The vast majority have registered online with a small portion coming through our HSE call centre.

“Overall it does reflect a very strong point in our vaccination rollout programme, we are now at 6.28 million vaccine doses.

“Many of those who registered yesterday have already received appointments for throughout this weekend.

“Our teams and vaccination centres are strongly focused to try and get this job done rapidly and quickly, we will have centres opening late next week and we will be putting out some more communications on that.”

The HSE boss said in younger age groups there doesn’t seem to be an immediate scramble to register.

“What we have seen as we’ve moved down through the younger ages is not an immediate uptake on the first day or two but a strong uptake over a period of a week or two weeks,” he said.

"That's been reflected in the 16 and 17-year-olds and now over 70pc of them have registered.

“We have seen them register over a period time. Particularly for 12 to 15-year-olds we are very conscious to make sure that parents and guardians think about it carefully and receive the correct advice.”

The portal for the 12 to 15-year-olds opened ahead of schedule on Wednesday evening.

Officials are aiming to make the process as convenient as possible for parents in a bid to encourage take-up.

Most of the youngsters will be directed to attend a HSE vaccination centre which will include weekend clinics beginning on Saturday or Sunday.

Parents or guardians will have to fill out and sign a lengthy consent form and say they have read and understood information about the vaccine, including very rare known side effects.

Children must be accompanied to the vaccination by an adult, otherwise it will not go ahead.