With the retail sector set to open on Monday and talks of a mandatory vaccination policy is being debated, one chamber president says non-nationals who are vaccinated may have an upper hand over the non-vaccinated in the workplace.
Speaking with Sunday Newsday, president of the Chaguanas Chamber of Industry and Commerce (CCIC) Richie Sookhai said while there has been an increase people getting vaccinated, many of those people were non-nationals.
The CCIC has been working in partnership with the Supermarket Association (SATT) and non-governmental organisation SEWA TT to roll out vaccines at the Divali Nagar site in Chaguanas.
He said with non-nationals taking the vaccines, employers who are seeking to have a fully vaccinated staff cohort may turn to these people since there was no national vaccination policy in place.
“Given the current circumstances and seeing that the non-nationals are keen on taking the vaccines it gives them somewhat of a competitive edge in the workforce, when looking at the nationals who are not vaccinated.
“So possibly, employers who may be looking to employ people and they see that non-national are fully vaccinated, this could be a plus on their résumé.”
Sookhai said business owners have not indicated any type of vaccination policy for workers or customers but must apply the mandatory covid19 health regulations of washing hands, sanitising and distancing.
With the retail sector scheduled to reopen on Monday, he said, a large section of the population will be back to work and movement was not limited to workers but the general public.
“It’s not just workers going back out there. People from all over will be back out to get their errands and other work done. We are seeing people from all over, from the retail sector to the industrial sector.”
He said the uptick in vaccination numbers were primarily due to the availability of the types of vaccines. Trinidad and Tobago currently offer the Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccines, Pfizer has been allocated for children and Johnson and Johnson vaccines were scheduled to arrive from Africa next week.
Sookhai said, “Knowing that there were more options available, people have been coming more over the past week for vaccines. We expect it to increase as government has announced another option through the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. And while Pfizer is being allocated for children, a lot of people have been anxious and excited to get vaccinated from what we were seeing here.”
TT Chamber of Industry of Commerce CEO Gabriel Faria said there has been some uptick in vaccinations with the availability of AstraZeneca.
Faria said, “One thing the population of TT cannot say is that they do not have a choice of vaccines. We have been talking to a number of members about vaccination in the workplace challenge and have found that different businesses, in different parts of the country, have different levels of vaccinations uptake. It is even among different levels of works.”
The TT Chamber in conjunction with the American Chamber of Commerc
