SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Al­though the coun­try was un­der an ad­verse weath­er alert yes­ter­day, with tor­ren­tial rain­fall for most of the day, vac­ci­na­tion at the Di­vali Na­gar site in Ch­agua­nas con­tin­ued un­hin­dered, as thou­sands of peo­ple showed up for their sec­ond jab of the Sinopharm vac­cine.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) pres­i­dent Tri­cia Coos­al said the as­so­ci­a­tion was hop­ing to ad­min­is­ter 5,000 sec­ond dos­es yes­ter­day.

“De­spite the rain and the weath­er con­di­tions, we are see­ing a con­stant flow at the Di­vali Na­gar to­day, we were very pleased with that - it shows that the cit­i­zens un­der­stand the need to get vac­ci­nat­ed,” Coos­al said.

The TTMA, T&T Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion and SE­WA TT In­ter­na­tion­al have been vac­ci­nat­ing the pub­lic at the site for 11 weeks since they re­ceived au­tho­ri­sa­tion from the Min­istry of Health.

Coos­al said there has been an uptick in the num­ber of peo­ple show­ing up to get vac­ci­nat­ed at the site in the past sev­er­al days. She said the de­mand al­so seems to be grow­ing amongst those who work in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

“We are hop­ing that by Thurs­day, we would have ad­min­is­tered, the TTMA, 40,000 vac­cines to the pop­u­la­tion - that would be in­clud­ing our first dose and sec­ond dose,” she said.

She al­so sent out a fresh ap­peal to the pub­lic, ask­ing them to get vac­ci­nat­ed to pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies from COVID-19.

SE­WA TT chair­man Reevan Teelucks­ingh was al­so on hand at the site. He told Guardian Me­dia that by noon, 2,600 dos­es of the vac­cine had been ad­min­is­tered. He said the vol­un­teers at the site were get­ting worn out but they con­tin­ue to do what is need­ed to as­sist in the pro­tec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion against COVID-19.

“We have, on any giv­en day, 50 vol­un­teers on site that are giv­ing their time and en­er­gy to en­sure that peo­ple get vac­ci­nat­ed, so all we are ask­ing is that you come out to get vac­ci­nat­ed and we will do the rest,” Teelucks­ingh said.

Teelucks­ingh said there has been some vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy and “choos­ing” of vac­cines by mem­bers of the pub­lic but he re­it­er­at­ed that the best vac­cine is an avail­able one.

For those who were seek­ing out the Pfiz­er vac­cine, Teelucks­ingh had this mes­sage: “We ask that the chil­dren al­ways be the first pri­or­i­ty - the on­ly vac­cine avail­able to them is the Pfiz­er at this point in time - so let us com­ply and not make any re­quests. Let us get the chil­dren vac­ci­nat­ed first and if there is any­thing af­ter that, then you could de­cide.”