Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment is in talks with ma­jor phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers of cut­ting edge drugs and is al­so dis­cussing util­is­ing COVID-19 vac­cines for chil­dren ages 5 to 11.

Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh re­vealed the in­for­ma­tion yes­ter­day in Par­lia­ment, as he re­spond­ed to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip David Lee on mea­sures to deal with the third wave of COVID-19 in the coun­try.

Deyals­ingh said the Delta vari­ant is now in 193 coun­tries and not­ed that he said back in Au­gust that it was not a mat­ter of if but when the vari­ant would hit T&T.

At that time, Deyals­ingh said the rolling sev­en-day av­er­age was 221 and the vac­ci­na­tion rate stood at 21 per cent.

It is con­firmed to be in all coun­ties through­out T&T now.

He said the Gov­ern­ment start­ed a plan with the State of Emer­gency and be­cause of that, the vac­ci­na­tion rate went up to 45 per cent. With­out the SoE, Deyals­ingh said the hir­ing of 466 ex­tra vac­ci­na­tors couldn’t have been done with­out touch­ing par­ent leg­is­la­tion.

He said there were pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes and over 300 touch­points for vac­ci­na­tions.

The Health Min­is­ter al­so said the Gov­ern­ment is in talks with ma­jor phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers on cut­ting edge drugs, an­ti-vi­rals or oth­er ther­a­peu­tics, as well as the vac­cine for chil­dren.

He said half a mil­lion dol­lars was al­so sent to UWI to in­crease ge­nom­ic se­quenc­ing ca­pac­i­ty for vari­ants of con­cern.

In ad­di­tion, Deyals­ingh said nine hos­pi­tals were ac­ti­vat­ed, as well as sev­en step-down fa­cil­i­ties. There are now 999 beds in the par­al­lel health sys­tem, along with the Na­tion­al Emer­gency op­er­a­tional cen­tres ac­ti­vat­ed, lead­ing to 13 more In­ten­sive Care Unit beds last week­end.

Deyals­ingh added, “All of this we have been do­ing and while we’re at 45 per cent vac­ci­na­tion rate, it’s still not good enough. I urge all those who are not vac­ci­nat­ed to lis­ten to the sci­ence, be­lieve in it and do the right thing with the three Ws—wash hands, wear a mask, watch your dis­tance—so we could all have a Mer­ry Christ­mas.”