PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali is call­ing for the re­moval of vac­cine dis­crim­i­na­tion for trav­el through­out the re­gion.

He made the call dur­ing an ad­dress to the na­tion and news con­fer­ence to mark his first year in of­fice yes­ter­day.

Guardian Me­dia was in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the new con­fer­ence.

Ali de­fend­ed his coun­try’s de­ci­sion to use Sput­nik V, as he said there should be no dis­tinc­tion in vac­ci­nat­ing against COVID-19.

He said the de­ci­sion to use the Russ­ian vac­cine was out of both ne­ces­si­ty and avail­abil­i­ty.

“We see no dis­tinc­tion in a vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme. Whether it is Sput­nik, Sinopharm, Pfiz­er, Mod­er­na. There is no dis­tinc­tion for us. And in our eyes, in the vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme,” Pres­i­dent Ali said, “be­cause we fought for Pfiz­er we fought for Mod­er­na we fought for John­son & John­son and we could not get it. But we were able to get Sput­nik. And we in­vest­ed in it be­cause lives of the peo­ple mat­tered.”

Sput­nik’s lack of World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) ap­proval has meant that sev­er­al coun­tries, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, still place re­stric­tions on in­di­vid­u­als vac­ci­nat­ed with Sput­nik V.

Those who en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go with a Sput­nik vac­cine cur­rent­ly would have to en­ter quar­an­tine like any oth­er un­vac­ci­nat­ed ar­rival to the coun­try.

Pres­i­dent Ali is not in agree­ment with this stance.

“I don’t think we should de­ny per­sons, who took these vac­cines. The free­dom to move with­in the re­gion. I don’t think so,” he said.

Sput­nik V had pre­vi­ous­ly been a talk­ing point af­ter some Guyanese na­tion­als re­act­ed to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ref­er­ence to the vac­cine’s lack of WHO ap­proval while giv­ing an up­date on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s vac­cine pro­cure­ment.

The Prime Min­is­ter had not­ed then that in Cari­com, that while Guyana had re­ceived more vac­cines due to their ac­cep­tance of Sput­nik V, Trinidad and To­ba­go had re­ceived the largest amount of WHO-ap­proved vac­cines.

When asked about the state of the re­la­tion­ships be­tween the coun­tries, Ali said it re­mained ex­cel­lent.

“Our re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad and To­ba­go has not changed. Trinidad and To­ba­go and Guyana has al­ways shared a spe­cial re­la­tion­ship. We have al­ways sup­port­ed each oth­er. Good times and in bad times. We have had an ex­cel­lent re­la­tion­ship,” said the Guyanese Pres­i­dent.

File: A Caribbean Airlines flight, BW 3462, descends toward the Piarco International Airport after arriving from Guyana.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

“And noth­ing in my gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy will change that. So, I can speak de­fin­i­tive­ly on Guyana. But I want to as­sure you al­so that Guyana has a de­vel­op­ment path­way that we have de­fined. We have poli­cies that we have pur­sued in re­la­tion to COVID. And those poli­cies are to be re­spect­ed,” he said.

He said while Guyana’s oil and gas sec­tor was on the rise, his coun­try’s in­ten­tion was not to be­come an en­er­gy sec­tor pow­er­house but sim­ply to cre­ate a sus­tain­able fu­ture, not on­ly for his coun­try but his Cari­com neigh­bours.

“Guyana is not aim­ing to be­come any pow­er­house. We are not aim­ing to demon­strate or flex any mus­cle or pow­er. Our on­ly aim is to en­hance the prospect of all the peo­ple of this re­gion. So what­ev­er re­sources Guyana gets from this oil and gas sec­tor and all oth­er sec­tors, I as­sure you will re­sound not on­ly to the ben­e­fit of Guyanese but all the peo­ple of Cari­com. We are one peo­ple in Cari­com. There’s no dis­tinc­tion in my eyes be­tween our bor­ders,” he said.

The Pres­i­dent said sev­er­al Trinidad and To­ba­go in­vestors were al­ready present in Guyana and more were wel­come.

“We are open for in­vest­ment for a mat­ter of fact. There are a lot of in­vestors from Trinidad and To­ba­go. A lot of your pri­vate sec­tor mem­bers who are here, who have al­ready in­vest­ed, who are ex­plor­ing and they have all been wel­come,” Ali said.

“But they’re not on­ly wel­comed in the en­er­gy sec­tor. There are mas­sive op­por­tu­ni­ties in the oth­er sec­tors,” he said.

T&T’s vac­cine en­try pol­i­cy

If the Guyanese Pres­i­dent’s call for an end to vac­cine dis­crim­i­na­tion in the re­gion, Trinidad and To­ba­go will have to change its po­si­tion re­gard­ing the en­try of peo­ple in­to the coun­try.

At present, all trav­ellers are re­quired to sub­mit a neg­a­tive Na­sopha­ryn­geal (nasal swab) RT-PCR test re­sult tak­en no ear­li­er than 72 hours pri­or to ar­rival in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Non-na­tion­als who are not ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed are not al­lowed en­try to Trinidad and To­ba­go at this time.

In­di­vid­u­als are on­ly con­sid­ered to be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed for COVID-19 if 14 days have passed since they re­ceived the full dosage of a WHO-ap­proved vac­cine.

For two-dose COVID-19 vac­cines, pas­sen­gers must have re­ceived two dos­es of the same vac­cine or the first dose of the As­traZeneca vac­cine fol­lowed by the sec­ond dose of the Mod­er­na (as at Ju­ly 30th 2021) or Pfiz­er vac­cine.

Pas­sen­gers with any oth­er com­bi­na­tion of vac­cines would not be con­sid­ered ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, at this time.