The Prime Minister says if a covid19 vaccine is approved by the World Health Organization for children five years and older, once it is available, it will be put on the list of mandatory vaccines for children to attend public school.
Speaking at a press conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s on Saturday, Dr Rowley said there have been good results of the use of Pfizer in children five and older. Once the WHO sanctions it, the government will accept the authorisation.
“Once there is a vaccine that is available for this infection and it’s sanctioned by the WHO, the government of TT will make efforts to get that vaccine for our children and such a vaccine would be added to the list of vaccines for children, which we have grown up with, because it is the same response.”
He added that school would physically open on Monday for vaccinated students in forms four to six.
He said when children went out to school before there were vaccines, it was something that had to be done, but now there were vaccines and the country was taking the next step.
He added that, before the Pfizer vaccine arrived in TT, many people were expressing concern about children being deprived of physical school where interaction was important to their development. Therefore, the government indicated if there was a high uptake of the vaccine in children ages 12 to 18, there would be a low risk of spreading the virus among themselves, and schools would reopen.
“We’ve made a firm decision that we will vaccinate as many of our children who have to go to school as possible. Initially, I must admit, I expected that there would have been a greater response to that, because it was such an integral part of the planning programme in fighting covid19.”
He expressed the hope that some or most of the unvaccinated children would join the vaccinated in physical school later on.
“But in the mean time an alternative will be available and we’ll try to make sure that alternative is useful.”
Rowley stressed that the covid19 delta variant is already in the population and TT will not get a pass from the affects of the more infectious variant.
“The rest of the world where the delta variant became present, was propagated, they suffered some significant increases and in some cases, some calamities. I’m not saying that we are automatically going to get there. I’m saying if we don’t do the best that we can do, then there is a high possibility that we too can become a casualty like those countries where the delta variant swept through the population with all its consequences.”
[caption id="attachment_916621" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Members of the public and media record calypsonian Timothy "Baron" Watkins as he sang to entertain people at the Health Ministry's vaccination drive on Brian Lara Promenade, Port of Spain on Saturday. - PHOTO BY SUREASH CHOLAI[/caption]
He said if the infection levels became high, more people would need hospital care but the country had limit
