THE EDITOR: A few years ago, I pointed out to this Government that simple arithmetic would indicate that its approach to property tax was an exercise in futility. The paperwork and evaluation required to review over 700,000 properties would take years, given the staff available for the exercise.

Of course, it neglected to take my advice and now years afterwards it has not received one cent from property tax while it spent millions on a useless endeavour. I now ask the Government to consider the maths regarding covid19 vaccines.

The healthcare system has recently acquired over 100,000 vaccines. Fifty thousand of these need to be in arms within a period of about two weeks to allow for the second dose a few weeks later. All of this must be completed before the vaccines expire, but, more importantly, these vaccines are required in arms rapidly to allow for citizens to resume some level of normal activity.

The Government through its media releases has indicated that the daily average of people vaccinated is below 2,000. If, for example, 1,500 people were vaccinated daily it would take more than a month just to get the first 50,000 vaccinated.

The Government should be able to have the 50,000 vaccinated within two weeks, which would mean the daily vaccinations should be a bit over 4,000. These numbers would have to be increased when supplies of additional vaccines come in from the US.

What is required immediately is for the Red Cross, St John's Ambulance Brigade, army and coast guard personnel and perhaps cadets to be trained to deliver vaccines. In addition, vaccines sites must be opened in areas like the stadiums and similar sporting facilities, the Centre of Excellence and other sites that allow for large groups of people to congregate safely.

The government printery should be busy generating over 500,000 immunisation booklets and temporary non-medical staff should be employed to complete the paperwork.

The present system cannot get the nation anywhere near the numbers required for herd immunity in a short time. Let's hope for the sake of our national health and a better economy the Government takes my advice and gets the required personnel and infrastructure in place urgently.

As a point of reference, kindly note that a packed Port of Spain stadium to watch a football game is only about 20,000 people. We need to vaccinate over 500,000 individuals in a few months.

STEVE ALVAREZ

via e-mail

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