sto­ries by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With 41 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh says the Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to make leg­isla­tive changes be­fore Oc­to­ber 11 to al­low safe leisure spaces for vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple.

Speak­ing to re­porters at a vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve in Mara­bel­la on Fri­day, Deyals­ingh said the lock­down had run its course and it was time for the econ­o­my to re­turn to nor­mal.

“To­day we vac­ci­nat­ed 41 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion with full shots and 35 per cent with their sec­ond shots. The num­bers are de­cent but we need to get them bet­ter. From Sep­tem­ber 27, we no­ticed a 50 per cent in up­take over the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od last week,” Deyals­ingh said.

He al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the nurs­es say­ing the turnout was 90 -95 per cent.

“ Ab­solute­ly no pa­tient care has­been com­pro­mised. We will con­tin­ue to en­gage our nurs­ing per­son­nel con­struc­tive­ly and re­spect­ful­ly as we con­tin­ue to solve and ad­dress valid con­cerns,” he said.

For the five per cent who stayed away, Deyals­ingh said: I will con­tin­ue to say we will treat your is­sues re­spect­ful­ly. The is­sues have large­ly been solved at the ER­HA and SWRHA. Some is­sues are be­fore the chief per­son­nel of­fi­cer.”

Deyals­ingh al­so said the safe zones do not ap­ply to church­es or re­tail shop­ping but were for restau­rants, cin­e­mas and casi­nos where peo­ple would be in­clined to eat.

 Asked how the safe zones will be rolled out, Deyals­ingh said, “The Min­istry is work­ing with the of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. You do not have long again to wait un­til all those le­gal mat­ters are dis­cussed.”

He al­so said that changes were com­ing by mid-No­vem­ber where im­mu­niza­tion sta­tus would be sys­tem­ized us­ing a phone.

“Peo­ple who want to trav­el have to get an in­ter­na­tion­al im­mu­niza­tion card. The gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to have a QR code on phone. We are putting that da­ta in our data­base.  In about six to eight weeks, we will have that sys­tem up where you can have your vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus on your phone with a QR code to scan. You would not have to walk around with a phys­i­cal card.

With re­gard to the vac­ci­na­tion rate, Deyals­ingh said for the 12 to 18 pop­u­la­tion, a to­tal of 41,207 chil­dren have re­ceived their first dose while  28, 275 got their sec­ond dose. This is out of a pop­u­la­tion of 90,000.  Asked if he was sat­is­fied with the rate he replied, “ No. These num­bers should have been by 60,000-70,000 by now. But we work with what we have.” 

Mean­while, San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning thanked Deyals­ingh for the vac­ci­na­tion ini­tia­tive.
Asked whether there was still vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy in his con­stituen­cy, Man­ning said, “ I think some peo­ple have be­come com­pla­cent, they fig­ure they can get vac­ci­nat­ed at any­time now and they are putting their lives at risk. You (They) are play­ing Russ­ian roulette with their lives. I don’t know why you would want to do that.”