Three days in­to the new year and the scourge of deaths caused by the COVID-19 virus con­tin­ues with­out an end in sight.

As of yes­ter­day, health of­fi­cials re­port­ed 2,936 had died from the virus in T&T. There is no doubt this fig­ure will con­tin­ue to rise, as would the num­ber of cas­es. Al­ready the Min­istry of Health said it is brac­ing for the post-Christ­mas hol­i­day spike in COVID cas­es. Yes­ter­day ac­tive cas­es stood at 15,183.

T&T is not alone in the bat­tle against COVID. The world is fac­ing sim­i­lar prob­lems to us, chief of which is the lack of in­ter­est by thou­sands in not get­ting the vac­cine.

On Sun­day, this coun­try lost one of its beloved artistes Ken­ny J to COVID-19. His daugh­ter said he was ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed. He him­self was one of those who joined the na­tion­al choir in an ef­fort to en­cour­age cit­i­zens to get vac­ci­nat­ed. His mes­sage “do not hes­i­tate to vac­ci­nate to­day.”

Sad­ly he has passed, and our con­do­lences go out to his fam­i­ly. But his mes­sage must not be for­got­ten. Like the true Tri­ni sol­dier that he was, who loved his parang, mu­sic and his coun­try, he shared a com­pelling mes­sage which is eas­i­ly found on so­cial me­dia and Youtube. Cit­i­zens of­ten don’t lis­ten to the politi­cians and this news­pa­per has made the point be­fore that the same mes­sage from the same health of­fi­cials is no longer res­onat­ing. It is peo­ple like Ken­ny J, Su­perBlue, Machel Mon­tano, Ter­ri Lyons, Chalk­dust, Cro Cro and oth­ers in the art­form who peo­ple pay at­ten­tion to.

It is, there­fore, dif­fi­cult to be­lieve that in a coun­try so rich with cul­tur­al icons and am­bas­sadors that the Min­istry of Health start­ed 2022 with­out a shift in their think­ing or mes­sag­ing.

A video done by David Rud­der, in which he spoke about the Po­lio vac­cine sav­ing his life, is be­ing wide­ly shared even among some in min­is­te­r­i­al of­fice. But should not this video have sparked a new way of think­ing to get cit­i­zens who con­tin­ue to be hes­i­tant to get vac­ci­nat­ed?

Yes­ter­day, the Pre­mier of On­tario Doug Ford an­nounced that all schools in Cana­da’s most pop­u­lous province will be shut down and move to on­line learn­ing be­cause of a record num­ber of coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions fu­elled by the ul­tra-con­ta­gious Omi­cron vari­ant. Ford al­so an­nounced the clo­sure of in­door din­ing, gyms and cin­e­mas.

In Britain, Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son warned that the coun­try’s health sys­tem will re­main un­der strain for weeks amid the cur­rent surge in coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions, as the high­ly trans­mis­si­ble Omi­cron vari­ant sent Britain’s dai­ly new case­load soar­ing over Christ­mas and the New Year, with 157,758 in­fec­tions re­port­ed for Eng­land and Scot­land and 42 deaths in Eng­land alone.

The sto­ry is the same across the world. Cas­es are ris­ing and yes­ter­day the top med­ical ad­vis­er in the US, Dr An­tho­ny Fau­ci urged Amer­i­cans to get vac­ci­nat­ed and for those who are al­ready vac­ci­nat­ed to get their boost­er shots. Fau­ci is con­cerned that the Omi­cron vari­ant is over­whelm­ing the health care sys­tem and caus­ing a “ma­jor dis­rup­tion” on oth­er es­sen­tial ser­vices, in­clud­ing the po­lice ser­vice.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, every­one should be aware of the stress placed on our al­ready over­bur­dened front­line work­ers, es­pe­cial­ly those doc­tors and nurs­es who have been do­ing yeo­man ser­vice in run­ning the health sec­tor over the past two years and count­ing.

COVID has brought many chal­lenges from fam­i­lies los­ing loved ones, many have lost their jobs due to busi­ness clo­sures and lock­downs im­ple­ment­ed last year, our chil­dren have lost their so­cial in­ter­ac­tion skills hav­ing to stay at home and in­ter­face with a com­put­er for their on­line class­es, our health work­ers are ex­haust­ed. There is no telling how and when this will end.

What we do know is that this virus will con­tin­ue to mu­tate if peo­ple are not vac­ci­nat­ed.

Vac­cines of­fer strong pro­tec­tion from se­ri­ous ill­ness, even if they don’t al­ways pre­vent a mild in­fec­tion.

As David Rud­der put it, a vac­cine saved his life, who knows a vac­cine can save yours al­so.

This bat­tle can be won, but it re­quires each of us do­ing our part.