Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram is pre­dict­ing that 2021 will be a much bet­ter year than 2020 be­cause vac­cines will be made avail­able to T&T and oth­er coun­tries world­wide to pro­tect peo­ple from the COVID-19 virus.

“Hav­ing the vac­cine com­ing soon and be­ing used in most parts of the world should be viewed as a pos­i­tive sign for all of us look­ing at this pan­dem­ic go­ing for­ward. 2021 should be viewed more pos­i­tive­ly than 2020 was be­cause we have a num­ber of vac­cine can­di­dates that have been suc­cess­ful and have been rolled out in dif­fer­ent parts of the world. It is the light at the end of the tun­nel and gives all of us a sense of hope. If and when it comes to T&T, I hope that all in­clud­ing the vul­ner­a­ble groups should take their vac­cines,” he said speak­ing at the Min­istry of Health’s press con­fer­ence on Sat­ur­day.

Paras­ram quot­ed from a press re­lease that the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) re­leased yes­ter­day which stat­ed that the CO­V­AX fa­cil­i­ty would even­tu­al­ly have 15 dif­fer­ent vac­cines avail­able for mem­ber states and the dis­tri­b­u­tion will most like­ly start at the end of the first quar­ter of 2021.

A ques­tion was al­so raised about the re­ports of deaths in Nor­way af­ter the Pfiz­er vac­cine was tak­en.

Paras­ram re­spond­ed by say­ing that T&T has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to see the vac­cine be­ing rolled out in oth­er coun­tries to see what are their ad­verse ef­fects and the strate­gies for how these vac­cines will be rolled out lo­cal­ly.

“It is too ear­ly for the Nor­way in­ci­dent or any oth­er in­ci­dent that has not been ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed as there are too many con­found­ing fac­tors to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion as yet.”

Paras­ram re­it­er­at­ed that vac­cines alone will not stop COVID-19 and the pub­lic needs to con­tin­ue to abide by health reg­u­la­tions.

Dr Os­afo Fras­er, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health for St George East who al­so spoke at the vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence said the pro­to­cols for vir­tu­al car­ni­val events would be the same as when peo­ple are in pub­lic spaces such as hand san­i­tiz­ing and mask-wear­ing.

27 new COVID cas­es

CLIN­I­CAL UP­DATE from the Min­istry of Health

*The to­tal num­ber of peo­ple test­ed 77,299

*Pos­i­tive cas­es last 24 hours 27 per­sons

*Pos­i­tive cas­es since March 12 are 7,370

*To­tal Re­cov­ered Pa­tients 6,923

*To­tal Ac­tive Pa­tients 316

*To­tal Num­ber of Pa­tients in hos­pi­tals 40

*The num­ber of deaths is 131

*Num­ber of peo­ple at quar­an­tine sites 300

*Those on home iso­la­tion 245