Hin­du Pun­dit Satyanand Ma­haraj, leader of the Satya Anand Ashram in Aranguez, is once again mak­ing a call for vac­ci­na­tion against COVID-19 to be made manda­to­ry.  This time, he has penned a let­ter to the Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, ask­ing that his ad­min­is­tra­tion make the move to manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tions, “now”.

This lat­est mis­sive fol­lows a re­lease is­sued by Pun­dit Ma­haraj on­ly last week on the same is­sue.

Pun­dit Ma­haraj ex­press­es con­cern in his let­ter, about what unchecked COVID-19 in­fec­tions could mean for the health care sys­tem.

He writes: “The un­vac­ci­nat­ed are con­tract­ing COVID-19 and putting the health care and par­al­lel health­care sys­tem un­der such a strain that its col­lapse is im­mi­nent.  The re­sult is that many can­not ac­cess the health­care sys­tem for what would have been rou­tine treat­ment.”

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the cor­re­spon­dence sent by Pun­dit Ma­haraj to Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley…

Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter,

On the 24th No­vem­ber 2021, I made a call of manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion for all in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I have since been joined by the med­ical fra­ter­ni­ty, var­i­ous Cham­bers of Com­merce and oth­er in­ter­est groups. I am al­so re­li­ably in­formed that Spir­i­tu­al Lead­ers in Mandirs, Mosques and Church­es have been en­cour­ag­ing their mem­ber­ship to be vac­ci­nat­ed.

Just as safe zones have been es­tab­lished for vac­ci­nat­ed cit­i­zens, it is my rec­om­men­da­tion that the Gov­ern­ment ap­ply mea­sures that it has rec­om­mend­ed for the pri­vate sec­tor to it­self.

You should be vac­ci­nat­ed to en­ter and do all gov­ern­ment busi­ness. This should ap­ply to all gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees in­clud­ing doc­tors, nurs­es, Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and all who work in the pub­lic sec­tor. It should al­so be re­quired if you wish to pa­tron­ize gro­ceries and oth­er stores, in­clud­ing all modes of trans­port.

The un­vac­ci­nat­ed are con­tract­ing COVID-19 and putting the health care and par­al­lel health­care sys­tem un­der such a strain that its col­lapse is im­mi­nent. The re­sult is that many can­not ac­cess the health­care sys­tem for what would have been rou­tine treat­ment.

Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter…  I here­by call on you to make vac­ci­na­tion manda­to­ry. The time has come to in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion to com­pel those who can take the vac­cine to take it. Just like in the past, leg­is­la­tion was in­tro­duced to com­pel dri­vers to wear seat belts for their own pro­tec­tion and leg­is­la­tion was in­tro­duced to stop smok­ing in build­ings to pro­tect non-smok­ers from sec­ondary smoke so to now leg­is­la­tion is re­quired to save the cit­i­zens, con­sid­er­ing the many strains of this dread­ed virus.

Your Re­spect­ful­ly,

Pun­dit Satyanand Ma­haraj
Satya Anand Ashram
Aranguez