With re­port­ing by Renu­ka Singh

The Unit­ed States an­nounced yes­ter­day it will give six mil­lion dos­es of COVID-19 vac­cines to Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, bring­ing new hope for an in­creased num­ber of vac­cines com­ing to our shores.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was one of four na­tion­al lead­ers to speak with US Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris yes­ter­day about the do­na­tion, in his ca­pac­i­ty as Cari­com chair­man.

The ex­act amount that will come to T&T is not yet known.

The US Gov­ern­ment’s Fact Sheet on the do­na­tion said the six mil­lion vac­cines, com­pris­ing most­ly Pfiz­er, Mod­er­na and John­son and John­son, will be shared be­tween Brazil, Ar­genti­na, Colom­bia, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Pe­ru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Bo­livia, Guatemala, El Sal­vador, Hon­duras, Pana­ma, Haiti, and oth­er Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­tries, as well as the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley did not re­spond to ques­tions on this is­sue yes­ter­day. His of­fice, how­ev­er, is­sued a state­ment, ac­knowl­edg­ing that he met with Har­ris.

It said: “Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Chair­man of CARI­COM, Dr the Hon Kei­th Row­ley, held a tele­phone con­fer­ence meet­ing with Vice Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, Ka­mala Har­ris to­day (Thurs­day, June 3, 2021). This is the very lat­est in a se­ries of high-lev­el con­tacts which the Chair­man of CARI­COM, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley has been hav­ing with high-lev­el of­fi­cials of the US Ad­min­is­tra­tion in re­cent weeks.”

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne as­sured that the Prime Min­is­ter “will con­vey the specifics in due course”.

“Once all the de­tails have been pro­vid­ed by the US Ad­min­is­tra­tion,” Browne said.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.

OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER

US Em­bassy on do­na­tion

Chargé d’Af­faires at the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain, Shante Moore said the Em­bassy “has worked close­ly with re­gion­al coun­ter­parts, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and of­fi­cials in Wash­ing­ton D.C. to en­sure the re­gion would be in­clud­ed in this do­na­tion. This is an ex­am­ple of what we en­vi­sion as a strate­gic bi­lat­er­al part­ner­ship work­ing to­geth­er to ad­dress and re­solve is­sues of mu­tu­al im­por­tance to the Unit­ed States, Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the re­gion.”

The Em­bassy’s state­ment added, “We are shar­ing these dos­es not to se­cure favours, ex­tract con­ces­sions, or pur­sue hid­den agen­das. We are not im­pos­ing con­di­tions the way oth­er coun­tries are do­ing. The vac­cines are be­ing do­nat­ed, free and clear. We are giv­ing them for a sin­gle pur­pose - to end the pan­dem­ic and save lives.”

Yes­ter­day’s an­nounce­ment came days af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced last week that the coun­try pur­chased an­oth­er 100,000 vac­cines from Sinopharm in Chi­na and is ex­pect­ing a tranche from the African Med­ical Sup­plies Plat­form.

Last week T&T al­so re­ceived an­oth­er 10,000 As­traZeneca vac­cines do­nat­ed by Grena­da.

Hinds op­ti­mistic

Mean­while, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds yes­ter­day told a What­sApp chat group called T&T Cit­i­zens Over­seas, that Trinidad and To­ba­go should achieve herd im­mu­ni­ty in the next few months.

“We are now as­sured of get­ting vac­cines in great quan­ti­ties, such that T&T will eas­i­ly get to “herd im­mu­ni­ty” in a few short months! In those cir­cum­stances, even our bor­der man­age­ment arrange­ments will be, as now, con­stant­ly re­viewed! God bless! Keep safe! Keep strong. We know it has not been easy! It has been hard for our gov­ern­ment as well! Hard on your fel­low cit­i­zens here! But it is a bur­den which we all had to and must share,” he said.

Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi.

Faris sets stage for Car­ni­val

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, hours be­fore, told an on­line au­di­ence that the next Car­ni­val will be the “Moth­er of all Car­ni­vals” as he too point­ed to the num­ber of COVID vac­cines com­ing in­to the coun­try.

Al-Rawi did not state when the next Car­ni­val would be but told the Twit­ter event known as ‘Faris in the Space’ that the coun­try is on the way out of the pan­dem­ic.

He ad­vised artistes that brighter days are on the way.

“We will come out of this pan­dem­ic,” he said.

“Next Car­ni­val is go­ing to be the moth­er of all Car­ni­vals. Good days are ahead of us, and I’m very hope­ful about it.”

He al­so used the plat­form to dis­miss claims that mon­ey was a prob­lem for the ac­qui­si­tion of vac­cines.

“We are in every zone across every field pos­si­ble. We will be com­ing out of this. We just have to hold on a bit longer.”

T&T red-list­ed in UK

How­ev­er, de­spite the hope­ful news com­ing out of the Unit­ed States, this coun­try al­so made an­oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al list, this one not as favourable.

The Unit­ed King­dom added T&T to its “red list” which means that any T&T na­tion­al en­ter­ing the UK would re­quire a 10-day ho­tel quar­an­tine.

Britain added six oth­er coun­tries along­side T&T, in­clud­ing Egypt, Sri Lan­ka, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Cos­ta Ri­ca and Su­dan.