The first day of the Cana­da-do­nat­ed As­traZeneca vac­cine roll­out yes­ter­day saw scores of peo­ple seek­ing the vac­cine for var­i­ous rea­sons, in­clud­ing for trav­el pur­pos­es, but it was not with­out is­sues.

The roll­out flow at the South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts was tem­porar­i­ly dis­rupt­ed by the po­lice due to con­cerns that there was no so­cial dis­tanc­ing, while some peo­ple com­plained that it was dis­or­gan­ised. The mass vac­ci­na­tion sites through­out the coun­try catered for peo­ple seek­ing the As­traZeneca vac­cines and the sec­ond dose of the Sinopharm.

In a TTPS re­lease yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said the po­lice did not shut down the vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve at SAPA. Rather, he said due to the large num­ber of per­sons ex­pect­ed for ap­point­ments and walk-ins, as well as the in­clement weath­er, peo­ple had to break their lines to seek shel­ter. He said the or­gan­is­ers had catered for 1,000 peo­ple at the site. Not­ing that the po­lice were as­signed to mon­i­tor the event, he said be­cause of the rain, op­er­a­tions at SAPA were dis­rupt­ed for a short while. He gave the as­sur­ance that the po­lice will be out to­day when more peo­ple are ex­pect­ed.

How­ev­er, short­ly be­fore 9.30 am, an of­fi­cer ex­pressed con­cern to the or­gan­is­ers that there was no so­cial dis­tanc­ing where peo­ple were be­ing reg­is­tered.

Be­fore this oc­curred, how­ev­er, Nir­vana De­onar­ine said she had no prob­lem book­ing the on­line ap­point­ment.

“But, com­ing here with the amount of per­sons and stuff, I think things could have been bet­ter at the venue.”

De­onar­ine said she chose to take the As­traZeneca vac­cine for trav­el pur­pos­es and be­cause it is more recog­nised in oth­er coun­tries.

Du­lalchan Chat­ter­goon, who came for the sec­ond dose of the Sinopharm, was not pleased with the sys­tem. He sug­gest­ed that the build­ing be opened to ac­com­mo­date peo­ple wait­ing to re­ceive their vac­cines.

People wait in a long line outside the Queens Park Savannah for AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine yesterday.

KERWIN PIERRE

“The po­lice tell we line up on the side here but the rain still beat­ing we...” he ex­plained.

Chat­ter­goon de­cid­ed to leave and re­turn an­oth­er day.

Mean­while, An­drea Berg­er-Ram­per­sad said she took the As­traZeneca be­cause she want­ed to at­tend uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da.

At NA­PA in Port-of-Spain, where there were seat­ing ac­com­mo­da­tions, a woman who gave her name as Cather­ine said she was tak­ing the As­traZeneca be­cause she wants to vis­it her chil­dren in Cana­da. She had been wait­ing for ei­ther this vac­cine or the Pfiz­er vac­cine to ar­rive in the coun­try.

“Be­cause I want to see my kids again,” she said.

An­oth­er per­son at NA­PA said he did his re­search and felt As­traZeneca was bet­ter suit­ed for him be­cause he is a di­a­bet­ic.

At the vac­ci­na­tion site at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, a man who gave his name as Thomas said his main rea­son for tak­ing the As­traZeneca vac­cine was for trav­el pur­pos­es.

“I don’t want to have a stop­gap. What we un­der­stand over­seas is that some coun­tries say that you can’t re­al­ly come with Sinopharm. I not sure at the end of the day how that will play out but I just de­cid­ed I will take the As­tra.”

At the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua, some peo­ple were not hap­py with their ex­pe­ri­ence when they first ar­rived at the site. Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia as she was leav­ing, Sta­cy Lack­yle said, “When you reach in­side it is or­gan­ised but out­side it is very dis­or­gan­ised be­cause they have you sit­ting in your car wait­ing and then peo­ple just com­ing in and go­ing in and they don’t re­al­ly have a sys­tem in place. But from the time you get on the in­side every­thing is smooth sail­ing.”

She took the vac­cine be­cause of her health is­sues and for trav­el­ling pur­pos­es.

At­tempts to ob­tain the num­ber of peo­ple vac­ci­nat­ed at var­i­ous mass vac­ci­na­tion sites from the var­i­ous re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties were un­suc­cess­ful.