CARICOM searches for COVID-19 vaccines
By Bert Wilkinson
Caribbean Community governments
appear to have left the
daily management of the COVID-
19 to medical professionals and
have switched their focus to
acquiring hundreds of thousands
of doses of the vaccine with shipments
lined up to arrive in several
countries in the next month.
Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica,
Barbados and Trinidad, among
others, are all close to beginning
mass vaccinations for those interested
in being jabbed in the arms
but community associate, Bermuda,
is way ahead of the pack
already immunizing 5,000 citizens
with another 8,000 awaiting
their turn Premier David Burt
said this week. The prime minister
was among those who have
already received his.
As authorities await shipments
from Cuba, India, China, the UK
and the US, authorities across
the region are expressing concern
about lax compliance across
the region relating to the wearing
of masks, social distancing
and assembling in large numbers
blaming such poor attitudes and
approaches for positive infection
spikes in recent weeks, linking
this mostly to post Christmas
activities and revelry.
In the case of Barbados which
until the past six weeks appears
to have had the situation under
control, the island was from
Wednesday slipping into a 15-day
lockdown of non essential services
to help tame a spike that officials
blame on non compliance
across the spectrum of published
regulations.
Prime Minister, Mia Mottley
said a dusk to dawn curfew will
remain in effect during the period
and businesses and entities not
considered as nationally essential
must shut their doors during
what she called as “a national
pause.” This is the island’s second
lockdown in nine months.
“We need now to be able to
spread the message to everyone.
There are still too many
people regrettably who are not
wearing masks, there are still
too many people who are gathering
unnecessarily and I want
to remind Barbadians that this
thing is not playing, this thing
is real and to that extent, I am
asking every one of us to join the
effort in being able to encourage
persons in our communities, in
our households,” she said in a
national broadcast on Tuesday.
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“On Sunday, at midday, I am asking
for everyone in this country
to pause, literally pause, to pray
and to reflect on what we must
do to save our nation and to save
our people.”
Suriname has also tightened
up on overnight activities in
the wake of 33 deaths in January
compared to a mere five in
December.
Meanwhile, Jamaica Minister of
Health, Chris Tufton announced
the imminent arrival of 900,000
doses of Astra Zeneca vaccine
later this month as authorities
move to inoculate about 500,000
people 16 percent of the population
in the first instance the
Gleaner newspaper reported. The
island’s death toll as of this week
reached 352 from 15,800 cases.
Mottley also thanked India’s
government for agreeing to send
50,000 doses in the coming
weeks to Barbados following a
request sent to New Delhi 12 days
ago. “We have had commitments
from the Government of India
and we expect to receive very
shortly the first supply for 50,000
persons which will be 100,000
vaccines and we hope to be able
to start the deployment of that in
the very near future.”
Nearby Guyana through Minister
of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony
said the country will get about
120,000 doses from China and
Astra Zeneca shortly as he listed
frontline workers as among the
first to receive jabs.
“We are making other arrangements
to be able to acquire more
vaccines, so we should have
enough vaccines for the elderly
and persons with co-morbidities.
These arrangements haven’t
been completed as yet, but we
are very optimistic that we will
have more vaccines for persons in
those areas. When we complete
the health workers and the elderly
and people with co-morbidities,
then we will go to the next
level, which is other people in the
population,” Anthony said.
Boxes of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are
pictured in a refrigerator at a NHS mass coronavirus vaccination
centre at Robertson House in Stevenage, Hertfordshire,
Britain on Jan. 11, 2021. Joe Giddens/Pool via REUTERS//File
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