SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Hun­dreds of young peo­ple showed up at the mass vac­ci­na­tion site run by the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) at the Cen­tre Pointe Mall, Ch­agua­nas, on Fri­day, one of two new sites opened by the Min­istry of Health to roll out the Pfiz­er Vac­cine to young peo­ple be­tween the ages of 12-18 years.

SATT Pres­i­dent Ra­jiv Diptee said the struc­ture of the mass vac­ci­na­tion site was de­signed to en­cour­age mass ap­point­ments to in­clude schools. He said these ap­point­ments can be done on­line.

The SATT pres­i­dent told Guardian Me­dia the aim is to get as many as 1,000 per­sons vac­ci­nat­ed dai­ly. He ex­plained there will be vac­ci­na­tions on Sat­ur­day 21st Au­gust, and then again on next Wednes­day 25th, Fri­day 27th and Sat­ur­day 28th Au­gust—a pat­tern which would be re­peat­ed for the next few weeks.

Ra­jiv Diptee said the idea was to stag­ger the days to al­low for group ap­point­ments:

"We have enough space and staff to ac­com­mo­date groups and keep with­in the Covid pro­to­cols," he said.

Dr Stephen Ram­lo­gan said about 400-500 dos­es were card­ed to be dis­trib­uted on Fri­day.

"The [Pfiz­er] vac­cine is WHO-ap­proved for per­sons be­tween the ages of 12-18 years, and it is a rel­a­tive­ly safe vac­cine with rare side ef­fects.  Once you agree, you should be able to get vac­ci­nat­ed. It is not on­ly to help you, it's to help your fam­i­ly, to help your loved ones, friends and the en­tire pop­u­la­tion of T&T,” Dr Ram­lo­gan told Guardian Me­dia. 

Ni­rala Abra­ham, 16, and her sis­ter  Ki­rana, 12  said "The on­ly rea­sons she  wants the vac­cine is to flat­ten the curve to slow the spread of in­fec­tions and for life to re­turn to a lev­el of nor­mal­cy." 

Ni­rala told us both her par­ents took the vac­cine, while Ki­rana said tak­ing the vac­cine was a good choice.  Ki­rana said she is in form one  but has not yet at­tend­ed a phys­i­cal class at her school. Ki­rana said she wants to ex­pe­ri­ence high school be­yond the vir­tu­al realm.

Ronald Sama­roo of Cunu­pia took his son Justin Sama­roo to the vac­cine site, to­day.

"I have al­lowed him to make the de­ci­sion to take the vac­cine," he said.

Justin told us his rea­son for get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed: "I want to lime and get back to in­ter­act­ing with my friends."