While cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go is mak­ing strides in vac­ci­nat­ing tens of thou­sands of peo­ple against COVID-19, vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy con­tin­ues to be a wor­ry.

Over the past week, thou­sands of peo­ple got vac­ci­nat­ed at the Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion (SATT), Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce (AM­CHAM T&T), Pro­man and the Cou­va Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce (CPLCC) sites up to Sun­day.

CPLCC pres­i­dent Mukesh Ram­s­ingh said the Cham­ber be­gan its vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme last Fri­day at the Nal Ram­s­ingh Au­di­to­ri­um in Cou­va. It ad­min­is­tered ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,000 first dos­es to Cham­ber em­ploy­ees, work­ers of mem­ber com­pa­nies and the pub­lic through ap­point­ments and walk-ins.  From Au­gust 7, the CPLCC will ad­min­is­ter sec­ond dos­es. 

But Ram­s­ingh said there is a need for more peo­ple to get vac­ci­nat­ed as there was still too much hes­i­tan­cy. He said peo­ple are re­ly­ing on in­for­ma­tion from con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists on so­cial me­dia.

“In terms of op­er­a­tions, we went very smooth­ly. Again, it just comes back to the peo­ple not com­ing out for the vac­cines. Some com­pa­nies that booked 100 per­sons, maybe 50 per cent ac­tu­al­ly showed up for the vac­cine,” Ram­s­ingh said. 

While the CPLCC could vac­ci­nate more peo­ple, he ac­knowl­edged that there were oth­er lo­ca­tions.

The Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion (SATT) is close to ad­min­is­ter­ing 50,000 dos­es of the vac­cine. SATT di­rec­tor Maria Mo­hammed-Ma­haraj said there would be stock tak­ing to­mor­row to de­ter­mine the ex­act fig­ures for the first and sec­ond dos­es since they start­ed vac­ci­na­tions on June 8. The SATT vac­ci­nat­ed 13,000 su­per­mar­ket and phar­ma­cy work­ers and mem­bers of the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion with two dos­es by Ju­ly 11.  SATT vac­ci­na­tions con­tin­ue to­mor­row and Thurs­day for peo­ple want­i­ng their first dose of the vac­cine at the Cen­tre Point Mall in Ch­agua­nas. The SATT will ac­cept walk-ins be­tween 9 am and 4 pm on those days.

Mo­hammed-Ma­haraj said there is still some hes­i­tan­cy among work­ers in the sec­tor. How­ev­er, su­per­mar­kets that sent some of their staff to the SATT’s first vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme are send­ing more.

“Some of the same stores and chains are still send­ing their em­ploy­ees who saw that their col­leagues got vac­ci­nat­ed and want to come aboard. But there is still hes­i­tan­cy among staff,” Mo­hammed-Ma­haraj said.

The SATT ex­pand­ed its pro­gramme to in­clude re­tail, sup­ply, night­clubs, restau­rants, bars, food ser­vices, re­li­gious groups and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGO). Mo­hammed-Ma­haraj said a lot of peo­ple from NGOs, and re­tail stores re­spond­ed.

One re­tail chain sent 1,500 work­ers while an­oth­er, its full com­ple­ment of staff.

Last week, the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T (Am­Cham T&T) vac­ci­nat­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7000 peo­ple with their first dos­es. Am­Cham T&T CEO Ni­rad Tewari said that while some peo­ple do not want to take vac­cines, it was dif­fi­cult to de­ter­mine the lev­el of hes­i­tan­cy. Tewari said some peo­ple were al­so spe­cif­ic about which brand they would take.

“What I al­so found is there are peo­ple who are com­ing, who were not sure about the vac­cine. They did their read­ing and now re­alise that it is bet­ter to be vac­ci­nat­ed than un­vac­ci­nat­ed,” Tewari said. Like Mo­hammed-Ma­haraj, he al­so saw the con­fi­dence some peo­ple get with some­one they know got vac­ci­nat­ed. Tewari said he saw one of his for­mer pri­ma­ry school teach­ers vol­un­teer­ing and post­ed a pho­to­graph on so­cial me­dia.

“She told me sev­er­al peo­ple who were hes­i­tant had re­spond­ed and were now in­ter­est­ed in get­ting the vac­cine.” 

Am­Cham T&T will con­tin­ue to ad­min­is­ter first dos­es for the next two weeks. While there were pho­tographs on so­cial me­dia with emp­ty chairs last week at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts site, he said peo­ple should not mis­take ef­fi­cien­cy for un­der­util­i­sa­tion.

He said the process was so quick that there was no gath­er­ing of peo­ple.

The Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) said it has now reached 30,000 peo­ple in its vac­ci­na­tion cam­paign.

In part­ner­ship with the Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion, SE­WA TT In­ter­na­tion­al and the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture, the TTMA vac­ci­nat­ed work­ers and the pub­lic at eleven mass vac­ci­na­tion sites.

Pres­i­dent Tri­cia Coos­al said the TTMA was elat­ed for the con­tin­ued pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship with the Min­istry of Health and the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try.