Day coming soon for all to get COVID jab – PM

Barbadians were told Thursday night they may soon be able to receive COVID-19 vaccines on-demand as the Prime Minister announced the arrival of some 5,000 doses from Guyana today and expects another 33,600 under the COVAX facility by the end of next month.

In an address to the nation, Prime Minister Mottley also said that because of the “inequitable distribution” of vaccines, Government is deep in discussions with sources outside of the COVAX facility to buy jabs.

The PM said: “The Government of Barbados is committed to paying for these vaccines and to that extent a supplementary will be going to Parliament next week in order to be able to secure the funds to ensure the ones we do have to pay for we are in a position to do so.

“And it therefore means that because we have 38,600 extra ones, when the [Emergency Operating Centre] met night before last and when the Cabinet Sub-Committee met yesterday with the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners, we agreed we would now use some of the remaining vaccines that we have to the tune of the ones that we will receive.”

“As I told you before, we have a number of irons in the fire…we still have the African Medical Supplies platform plus the possibility of two procurements which we are awaiting the details on delivery on which we are in deep, deep discussions and commitments; in one instance payment. So we expect that we can turn the corner in terms of being able to have vaccines on demand for Barbadians and we will continue to do so over the course of the next few weeks and months.”

But she cautioned that the Government can only be certain of receiving the vaccines when they actually land at Grantley Adams International Airport.

At the same time, she said her administration was comfortable with where it was going.

“As with the COVAX, we had donations then under the COVID charity and as with others, we have had a number of persons coming forward asking to donate,” Mottley said. “We are not requiring it of anybody but we also know that people recognize the circumstances in which the global community and the national community find themselves and are therefore asking to be able to donate and we are going to facilitate that.”

She disclosed that Director of Finance and Economic Affairs Ian Carrington is in charge of arrangements for setting up a national vaccine donations fund, the details of which are to be given later.

Turning specifically to the performance of the vaccination campaign, the Prime Minister declared that it has been going well over the past three weeks.

She said: “We have recognized that over the course of the last three weeks our efforts to vaccinate Barbadians have gone well. As of 4 p.m. today we have vaccinated 50,621 people.

“That is by no means anything to be scoffed at. It is a major achievement for us as a nation.”

Acknowledging that the process did not go well initially, the Prime Minister said that there is a great demand for vaccines because people understand intrinsically that “if we are going turn the corner, the more Barbadians that can be vaccinated the better for us in terms of being able to achieve herd immunity.”

She advised therefore that the country can more quickly have a semblance of what is possible if the risk to Barbadians is considerably reduced as a result of the high numbers of vaccinations.

She pointed out that at the CARICOM Summit in February, fellow leaders continued to agitate and advocate for the equitable distribution of vaccines.

“The reality is that you can get some, but the prices are greater than you otherwise pay,” said the Prime Minister. “Until vaccines are available across the world you are going to have the possibility of variants and mutations causing difficulties.

“So far we have been lucky in hearing from the scientific community and the medical community that even if we are going to have variants that the booster vaccines are there to be able to deal with them.  But what it does mean is that there is still some level of uncertainty until as many countries across the world can see to the populations being appropriately vaccinated as we go forward.”

She continued: “I ask you, for those of you who have not yet been vaccinated please determine whether you are prepared to take it…talk to your doctors if you need to, but believe you me, it is critical that we need to be able to go forward together. But in doing that, the best example is for you to protect yourself and in protecting yourself you will ensure that we are in a position to protect each other.”

The Prime Minister told the nation that the frontline workers and those with chronic non-communicable illnesses will be revisited to ensure they are inoculated.

She said: “We will continue to move to reduce the backlog of persons over 70 in terms of persons who have registered as well as those who have chronic NCDs but are between the ages of 18 and 69.

“We also agreed that we must continue to expand on the frontline workers and the experience has been that people who initially said no three weeks ago are all coming forward now and saying we would like to be vaccinated and we have therefore gone back into a number of the critical frontline agencies in order to be able to facilitate and we will continue there.”

Government this week started mobile vaccination driving with teams going out to the homes of shut-ins or people who are too ill to go out in public.

Mottley recalled that about two weeks ago, a decision was taken to go into one of the communities where a larger than desirable number of cases was detected and was able to deliver vaccinations.

“Yesterday we took a decision that we are now going to expand to three new communities where we will go in at some point over the course of the next few days and start to be able to give vaccines,” Mottley announced. She did not identify the stricken communities or give details of the extent of the virus’ spread.

(emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)