Last week we received the Employers Consultative Association’s (ECA) long awaited contribution to the national vaccination debate which was published as a media release. One thing was clear – the ECA seems to be sitting on a very comfortable fence. Those of us who were hoping for elucidation from the association whose mandate is to provide employers with quality representation to ensure their strength and success for the country’s socio-economic wellbeing were left, well, unelucidated. By the time I had finished reading the release I was in the same position I was before I had read it. I am sure that most members of that organisation felt the same way.
I must be honest and state that I find the ongoing vacillation and stone kicking around the issue of vaccination to be both puzzling and illogical. Every day the national conversation from the neighbourhood spranger to company CEO is the same – when will businesses be able to open freely so we can start on the road to economic recovery? Yet when the conversation turns to vaccination, the position quickly changes to refusal and “I will wait and see.”
If everyone expects they can rely on herd immunity to avoid vaccination, then we will never reach herd immunity. And let us be clear – the WHO has stated it is unable to identify a definitive percentage of vaccinated persons that will constitute herd immunity but have warned factors such as a population being overweight, unhealthy, or aged will drive that percentage higher. So, the 75 per cent figure that is being bandied about could very well be higher for our population, considering our placement of 14 in the bottom 18 unhealthiest countries in the world by the Indigo Wellness Index.
[caption id="attachment_905388" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Volunteers help members of the public to receive the covid19 vaccine at NAPA, Port of Spain, a vaccination site run by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the American Chamber of Commerce. File photo -[/caption]
The covid19 virus is going nowhere and data in places such as the US and UK show that while vaccination does not prevent infection, it drastically reduces the virus’s debilitating effects, most importantly, death, and allows infected persons to return to work faster with a significantly reduced chance of suffering from long lasting negative side effects. It continues to devastate the unvaccinated sectors of those societies and sends a clear message for us – our public health sector will continue to be strained and our economy stagnated if we leave the virus to circulate freely among our population.
On Monday, July 19, the parliament of France approved a law that made vaccinations mandatory for health workers and to gain access to a wide array of public venues. This follows in the footsteps of countries such as Italy, which have made vaccinations compulsory to health workers and Saudi Arabia who introduced the hardline “No jab, no job” policy in May for workers in the public, private and non-profit sectors.
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