Poll reveals majority of NI voters approve of covid vaccine
Last updated 3rd Dec 2020
A poll carried out by Downtown Radio and Cool FM news has found the majority of people questioned would be happy to receive a covid vaccine.
The new Pfizer vaccine was given the green light by the health regulator MHRA and will become available from next week.
After the announcement, we started a poll on Twitter, asking our followers would they take the jab if it was offered to them.
It ran for 24 hours, and the majority came back in favour of taking it.
A total of 69.2% of those who responded said they would, while 30.8% said no.
The process of giving the Pfizer vaccine to healthcare workers in the region could begin as early as next week, commencing a population rollout programme that will last through to next summer.
The health department is hoping to achieve 75% uptake of the vaccine. That would amount to around one million of the 1.4 million over 18s eligible for the jab.
The Assembly's Health Committee met on Thursday to discuss the vaccine.
Chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride told the committee it is important that at least 50% of the population receives the vaccination.
"It is important that also, in addition to vaccinating the most vulnerable, that we get high population uptake when we get into those later phases of the programme, because that's the best way of protecting everyone, including the vulnerable,'' he said.
"Certainly, what we want to achieve is at least over 50% of the population being vaccinated, and certainly if we can get that up to 70%-75%, that actually will be a very, very significant achievement.''
After the evidence session concluded, several committee members complained that they had not been afforded enough time to scrutinise the vaccine programme and other aspects of the Covid-19 response.
DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley called for extra sessions with the minister and senior officials to enable more extensive questioning over key issues.
"It's absolutely disgraceful,'' he said.
Mr Buckley added: "The ability of this committee to scrutinise is significantly undermined at a time of critical national importance and I feel very passionate about it and I think we need to take this issue up.''