WE COMMEND the Government for its move to designate state workplaces - including those occupied by frontline health workers - safe zones and to ensure the terms and conditions of public employment do not sanction threats to public health and safety.

Not only are the measures announced Saturday by the Prime Minister necessary and proportionate, they are overdue.

This is more so considering the record-breaking levels of largely preventable deaths, the clear failure of repeated attempts at moral suasion, as well as the startling public sector vaccination statistics released by Government over the weekend.

That Dr Rowley has lived up to his oath to act without fear or favour has already been demonstrated by the short-sighted move by the Opposition once more to politicise the latest vaccination policy, as well as by the mobilisation of trade unions. Neither have cause.

It is shocking that less than half of public sector workers at some of the country's largest regional health authorities are, at this stage in the pandemic, vaccinated.

These medical workers, manning some of the country's biggest hospitals, interact with vulnerable patients. To allow such workers to continue to endanger the welfare of the population would be scandalous.

For similar reasons, the disclosure by the PM that less than half of the country's police officers are vaccinated is cause for grave concern, as is the fact that only 30 per cent of members of the Defence Force and 25 per cent of firefighters have taken jabs. This is a travesty given the essential nature of the duties performed by these public servants.

With prisons particularly susceptible - and already reeling from several past 'clusters' of covid19 infection - it is unfathomable that only 35 per cent of prison officers are vaccinated.

And it is unacceptable that 75 per cent of immigration officers - who interface with thousands of airport passengers - are not themselves protected against covid19.

These figures alone justify the Government's move to bite the bullet.

But the rapid mushrooming of the omicron variant, the record-breaking levels of infections, and the fact that December is poised to be the deadliest month since this pandemic began in TT, suggest a collapse of the healthcare system is imminent.

There is international precedent for state workers on state property being mandated to protect themselves, such as US President Joe Biden's mandate.

But Dr Rowley denies these measures are a mandate, and he is correct.

Creating safe zones is simply the exercise of state authority over properties already under its unimpeachable legal control.

It is hard to see these measures being rejected by any right-thinking court as justified and proportionate in the context of the ongoing public health emergency.

It is equally hard to accept the disruptive attempts by some to chain us to covid19 forever by not supporting this measure.

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