The Ministry of Health spent $480 million on the country's covid19 response since the beginning of the pandemic.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh thanked taxpayers for their contributions that went toward infrastructure, human resources and consumables including building and upgrading facilities, paying for quarantine, and buying equipment and personal protective equipment.

“It’s a big undertaking and all of it has been provided at absolutely no cast to the covid patient. But the taxpayer, and we must thank the taxpayer for this... The taxpayer has rushed to the rescue of TT to the tune of $480 million, that’s almost half a billion TT dollars.

“And that number, is it sustainable? We will have to continue to provide it. But think about what that money could have done for other aspects of health care.”

Speaking at the ministry’s virtual covid19 press conference on Saturday, he also announced that betting shops under the Bookmakers Association of TT would be allowed to open in October as a part of the TT Safe Zone initiative. Betting shops will join gyms, restaurants, cinemas and private members clubs which would be run by vaccinated staff and open to vaccinated customers.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram added that hospitals in the parallel health care system across the country were at 35 per cent capacity and there were nine paediatric cases in those hospitals, all at ward level and stable.

Adults go after Pfizer, slowdown among teens

And although the vaccination of children with the Pfizer vaccine has slowed down over the past week, adults continue to rush to get it.

And while adults getting vaccinated is a positive step, Deyalsingh is encouraging parents and guardians to get their children vaccinated before the vaccines expire.

On September 3 the Prime Minister announced 50,000 Pfizer doses would be allocated to members of the general public to vaccinate 25,000 people. Since then about 15,000 adults were vaccinated with Pfizer, which included 444 health care workers and 366 pregnant women.

At the press conference, Deyalsingh said, “Since we opened up the Pfizer to the general public this week, and I don’t want the public to be misled by the numbers, many more adults now are taking advantage of the Pfizer vaccines as opposed to children. And while that is good for the adults, it is not so good for the children.”

He said of the 90,000 school-aged children in the country, 33,540 got their first dose of Pfizer, and that number included 230 migrants. When the vaccination of children ages 12-18 began on August 18, the daily uptake was around 3,400 but on Thursday and Friday the uptake was 550 and 549 respectively.

With about 60,000 doses of Pfizer left reserved for children, he encouraged parents and guardians to get their children vaccinated as soon as possible to protect their children, especially from the delta variant, to allow them to return to physical school, and for their lives to return to some degree of normalcy.

“Your window of opportunity to access the Pfizer vaccine wi