JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Local business offers discounts for COVID jabs

by

Jesse Ramdeo
1391 days ago
20210527
A happy Candace Mathura points to the area on her arm where she received the COVID-19 vaccine at the Marabella Health Centre.

A happy Candace Mathura points to the area on her arm where she received the COVID-19 vaccine at the Marabella Health Centre.

RISHI RAGOONATH

The health ben­e­fits of get­ting the COVID-19 vac­cine may not be suf­fi­cient to con­vince some mem­bers of the pub­lic to get vac­ci­nat­ed.

That is why one lo­cal busi­ness has found a cre­ative ap­proach that may help the coun­try move a step clos­er to achiev­ing herd im­mu­ni­ty.

Much like how busi­ness­es in the Unit­ed States have of­fered free taxi rides to those on their way to get vac­ci­nat­ed, dis­count­ed pur­chas­es and even free meals right af­ter peo­ple have got their jabs, St Christo­pher’s Ser­vice Sta­tion is fol­low­ing suit.

If you thought that it can­not get bet­ter than sink­ing your teeth in­to pre-pack­aged dou­bles dur­ing the lock­down, then imag­ine pay­ing half the price.

It is an of­fer by St Christo­pher’s (Ser­vice Sta­tion) to any­one who re­ceived their COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion and ac­cord­ing to Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Robert Mo­hammed, the dis­counts are ap­plic­a­ble on most items across the store, in­clud­ing gas.

“ We are say­ing to you come to St Christo­pher with your im­mu­niza­tion card and whether you get 1 jab or 2 jab and we will give you a loy­al­ty card that gives you 20 points and you can buy any­thing in the store for 20 points.”

Since the gov­ern­ment’s roll­out of its covid 19 vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme on April 6 over 1,200 peo­ple have been ful­ly in­oc­u­lat­ed, while over 70,000 have re­ceived their first jab.

To en­sure en­thu­si­asm in the vac­cine does not plateau, the ser­vice sta­tion’s gen­er­al man­ag­er has adopt­ed an in­cen­tivized strat­e­gy to help get the coun­try across the fin­ish line.

“ We’ve been through it, this is the sec­ond wave and the on­ly way we can re­al­ly get through this is to vac­ci­nate as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble.”

Mo­hammed en­cour­aged oth­er busi­ness­es to adopt the strat­e­gy which has been im­ple­ment­ed in parts of the US.

Psy­chi­a­trist Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh ex­plained that en­cour­ag­ing seg­ments of so­ci­ety to­wards be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed may de­ter­mine whether herd im­mu­ni­ty is achieved soon­er or lat­er.

“There is a sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion this will ap­peal to, it’s a mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tor and I’m think­ing we may have no choice but to of­fer these in­cen­tives, even a cash in­cen­tive. The gov­ern­ment has to use every­thing in its ar­se­nal to al­low peo­ple’s minds to be changed.”

Dr Deyals­ingh said the in­duce­ment strat­e­gy could even help to avert the col­lapse of the coun­try’s par­al­lel health care sys­tem.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored