THE Prime Minister said on Saturday there is some light at the end of the tunnel, as the country has secured a significant number of vaccines to accelerate the covid19 vaccination programme.
Speaking at the media briefing at the Prime Minister’s residence, St Ann’s, Dr Rowley said: “I want to say that I am a little happier today with respect to the major issue we have been fighting for the last three months. There is a lot more light coming through the tunnel…but we need to stay the course.”
He cautioned the country not to get weary.
Rowley said by September, the country will be in a much better position than it is now, and the Government will be able to make decisions then that it cannot think about making now.
He recalled when he became chair of Caricom in January there was a public statement on the unavailability of vaccines. Three months later, he said, the discussion of vaccines was again raised at a Caribbean level but there were no vaccines available to the Caribbean and other smaller countries altogether.
“While vaccination was going at apace in some countries, we had sporadic drops in the ocean only from gifts made available to us by the beginning of April. Countries received small gifts from other generous countries, and we had our first Covax shipment in March, which was way below what we were expecting.”
He said for months he had been working “night and day” to get vaccines and received some responses that did not affect the acquisition in any significant way.
But he added that despite this, he could report that TT is now in a much better position because of the increased availability of vaccines through increased World Health Organization (WHO)-approved vaccines coming on board.
Rowley said the Government made “two substantial payments” for vaccines that will “allow us to have a continuous supply to bolster and accelerate our vaccination programme.” With the payments made, he expects that in the next six-eight weeks there will be a flow of vaccines to “keep us busy” in the accelerated programme.
Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said in preparation for this, the administration of the second dose of AstraZeneca vaccines to some 60,000 people will be ramped up. He hopes this could be done in 12 days beginning on June 7. Previous appointments for these doses will be scrapped, he said, and the recipients will receive phone calls with new dates and venues.
The Prime Minister warned that the “best” vaccine is the one available.
“The way out of where we are at is to have as many people vaccinated as possible. What we are aiming to do now, as we can confirm and have vaccines in our hands, we will want to get into arms as quickly as possible.”
Asked how much was paid for the vaccines, Rowley said he was not sure, but Finance Minister Colm Imbert will give an account.
He did not say how many were ordered or which brands of vaccine have been bought. Rowley said there was no one brand that was purchased as they bought from a consortium. He did specify that some – he did not disclose h
