Acting PM insists no vaccinations against will

Government has no intention of forcing persons to get vaccinated, but will continue with its responsibility to educate citizens.

Acting Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw emphasized that point on Monday evening as she addressed the third town hall meeting where persons gathered at the Deighton Griffith School and online to share their views on COVID-19 vaccinations and testing.

“There’s no intention to hold anyone down and place the injection in their arms. But what we have a responsibility to do, is to educate….  We have a responsibility, certainly, to put the information out there into the public domain, so people have the opportunity to be able to freely choose what they wish to do,” she said.

Bradshaw noted that, globally, the cases of COVID-19 continued to rise, with some countries, such as New Zealand, having to close borders because of increasing cases, while some countries in this region were recording more cases.

“What we all know is that if something is not done, that these things are going to impact us in a major way. It’s going to impact our healthcare system, it is going to impact our social services, and it’s going to simply impact our way of life as well,” the Acting Prime Minister warned.

Barbados recently received over 70 000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine from the United States Government and Bradshaw said this donation would widen people’s vaccine choice.

“Our intention certainly is to give Barbadians choices….  The opportunity to choose which type of vaccine they may want as well and I can say to you that…the vaccination team has certainly been working to roll out the plan in relation to not just the vaccines that are here, but certainly other vaccines that are being donated to Barbados, and certainly the ones that we are purchasing as well,” she explained.

With regard to a question about vaccinating children, Bradshaw insisted that parents would be consulted.

“As Minister of Education, …there is no way that we would be going to vaccinate children in this country without consultation,” she stressed.