Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The pub­lic got a demon­stra­tion of how to live with COVID-19 when Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh took a “jump up” with so­ca star Neil “Iw­er” George at the launch of a vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve in West­mall yes­ter­day.

It fol­lowed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s an­nounce­ment on Thurs­day that the coun­try would be pro­ceed­ing with the “Moth­er of all Car­ni­vals” de­spite ris­ing cas­es, re­ly­ing on the pub­lic’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Part of this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is for peo­ple to get vac­ci­nat­ed and boost­ed. That is why the Min­istry of Health has re­launched a na­tion­al vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve at malls across all re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties. These sites are ad­min­is­ter­ing COVID-19 and in­fluen­za vac­cines.

At the launch of the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s (NWRHA) site at West­mall yes­ter­day, Deyals­ingh was in­vit­ed by George to dance with him dur­ing his per­for­mance.

In an in­ter­view af­ter, Deyals­ingh said: “At this stage of the pan­dem­ic…as we move in­to the fourth year, this is the be­gin­ning of the fourth year of the pan­dem­ic, not on­ly the mes­sag­ing has to change but our at­ti­tude to­wards liv­ing with COVID has to change.

“The days for harsh lock­downs, bor­der con­trols, as the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter would have said yes­ter­day, are over be­cause ba­si­cal­ly, we have a pop­u­la­tion that is high­ly im­mu­nised ei­ther through in­duced im­mu­ni­ty through vac­ci­na­tion or ac­quired im­mu­ni­ty by in­fec­tion. So the strat­e­gy has to change.”

Deyals­ingh said they are hop­ing to vac­ci­nate as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble be­fore Car­ni­val but the pop-up dri­ves will not end af­ter the fes­tiv­i­ties.

“We don’t plan to end this for Car­ni­val or be­fore Car­ni­val. We will con­tin­ue vac­ci­nat­ing even af­ter Car­ni­val be­cause af­ter Car­ni­val we then move in­to Lent, which is a qui­et pe­ri­od but then you go in­to East­er, so we have to have our eyes on the cal­en­dar of events for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Mem­bers of the pub­lic who got their vac­cines said it was an easy process.

Mitzy Chan At­tong was there with her el­der­ly moth­er for their sec­ond COVID-19 boost­er shots.

“I was con­cerned with Car­ni­val pro­ceed­ing and it’s go­ing to be the moth­er of all car­ni­vals. Nei­ther of us is go­ing to be out, but I’m sure my chil­dren might be out, their friends might be in and out the house, so I just thought let me pro­tect mom first of all and then my­self,” she said.

Sal­i­ma Ho­sein, 85, said she had al­ready re­ceived all her boost­ers but vis­it­ed to get her in­fluen­za shot.

“Every year I do take my flu shot. Once they giv­ing some­thing that is good for the coun­try, I take it,” she said.

COVID-19 shots are rec­om­mend­ed for those in high-risk cat­e­gories, in­clud­ing the el­der­ly, those with co­mor­bidi­ties and the im­muno­com­pro­mised.