Gail Alexan­der

This coun­try is among 212 oth­er coun­tries us­ing the Sinopharm and As­traZeneca vac­cines which the Eu­ro­pean Union isn’t al­low­ing for trav­el en­try – but the sit­u­a­tion is flu­id, ever chang­ing and is the sub­ject of pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions around the world.

Al­so, con­sul­ta­tions on the fu­ture of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance (NIS) sys­tem will first in­volve em­ploy­ers’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives, unions and oth­er groups fol­lowed by the pub­lic.

Min­is­ters Ter­rence Deyals­ingh (Health) and Colm Min­is­ter (Fi­nance) spoke about the re­spec­tive mat­ters in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day in re­ply­ing to Op­po­si­tion queries.

Deyals­ingh was asked about the Eu­ro­pean Union’s re­cent de­ci­sion to ex­clude from its “Green List COVID pass­port,” the type of vac­cines T&T is us­ing – Sinopharm and some As­traZeneca made in In­dia– and what steps were be­ing tak­en to en­sure T&T trav­ellers can go to the EU un­hin­dered.

In­ter­na­tion­al me­dia re­port­ed Mon­day on EU’s Green Pass from this month and that the Eu­ro­pean Med­i­cine Agency will on­ly recog­nise four vac­cines: Pfiz­er/BioN­Tech, Mod­er­na, Janssen (John­son & John­son) and Vaxz­ervria (As­traZeneca made in Eng­land, oth­er sites around Eu­rope) – but not Co­v­ishield As­traZeneca made by the Serum In­sti­tute of In­dia.

T&T had got­ten from the lat­ter source among its vac­cines.

Deyals­ingh said Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion and pol­i­cy is two-fold.

He said, “We al­ways in­sist­ed in us­ing WHO-ap­proved vac­cines and al­so that any coun­try or agency that is sov­er­eign is free to make de­ci­sions as they see fit. We re­spect the rights of oth­ers to make de­ci­sions and we stand by our de­ci­sion to use WHO-ap­proved vac­cines.”

Mooni­lal asked if Deyals­ingh would liase with Cari­com health min­is­ters to get a so­lu­tion to the sit­u­a­tion, giv­en its im­pact on busi­ness and tourism trav­el, post-COVID.

Deyals­ingh replied, “I no­tice the Op­po­si­tion’s ob­vi­ous glee in try­ing to sab­o­tage Gov­ern­ment’s vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme from day one. They’re pre­tend­ing this is a T&T prob­lem but the facts are As­traZeneca and Sinopharm are be­ing used in 212 coun­tries, this isn’t a T&T prob­lem, it’s a glob­al is­sue.’’

Deyals­ingh not­ed the UK In­de­pen­dent’s head­lines that mil­lions of Britons who were giv­en the In­di­an-made vac­cine could be ex­clud­ed from the EU vac­cine pass­port scheme.

“This is not unique to us,” he added.

He al­so not­ed Ger­many, Spain and oth­er places re­port­ed­ly will­ing to ac­cept the In­di­an-made dos­es of As­traZeneca.

“The sit­u­a­tion is flu­id and dy­nam­ic and ever chang­ing and is the sub­ject of pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions around the world

UNC’s Roodal Mooni­lal said it was clear it wasn’t a T&T prob­lem alone.

“We’re not con­cerned about the UK and Ger­many, what are you do­ing? The on­ly place we could go for va­ca­tion is Bei­jing or Chi­na?!’

Deyals­ingh said that ques­tion “drips with sar­casm and racism.”

UNC MPs protest­ed.

Deyals­ingh said, “It’s a glob­al prob­lem where As­traZeneca and Sinopharm are be­ing used in 212 coun­tries.

“But the Op­po­si­tion con­tin­ues in their tirade against vac­cines, pre­tend­ing we’re the on­ly coun­try with this is­sue. But Gov­ern­ment will do all it can as a sov­er­eign state to ad­vo­cate for our in­ter­ests.’’

Im­bert: NIS con­sul­ta­tions in 2 phas­es

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert says con­sul­ta­tions on the NIS sys­tem will be held with­in the next two months.

First con­sul­ta­tions will be with stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing em­ploy­ers’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives, busi­ness as­so­ci­a­tions, trade unions’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives for one on one bi­lat­er­al con­sul­ta­tions.

Sec­ond con­sul­ta­tions will be na­tion­al pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions held at an ap­pro­pri­ate venue, or if COVID reg­u­la­tions don’t per­mit, in vir­tu­al form.

Im­bert as­sured that Gov­ern­ment had learned in the last 12 months how to do con­sul­ta­tions in dig­i­tal for­mat and would use the vir­tu­al method con­sul­ta­tions and al­so what­ev­er phys­i­cal con­sul­ta­tion can be done in the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions that may ex­ist in the next two months.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to sort it out,” he said.

Im­bert al­so laid reg­u­la­tions for the pro­cure­ment law.

Reg­u­la­tions will be de­bat­ed lat­er in the year. In­ter­est­ed peo­ple can com­ment on the reg­u­la­tions at parl101@ttpar­lia­ment.org.