Jab bus ‘works’

One week after health authorities began rolling out roving COVID-19 vaccinations, they said Friday the initiative has been “working well” even as the nationwide vaccination continues to creep around 35 per cent of the population, far short of what experts require to slow the pace of infections, illness and deaths.

“So far yes, we are getting people we would not have normally got unless we had gone to those communities, and also the numbers are slowly creeping up,” Co-coordinator of the National Vaccination Programme Major David Clarke told Barbados TODAY.

While unable to provide an up-to-date summary on vaccination figures this week, Major Clarke noted the turnout was relatively good, citing Wednesday when the numbers recorded were “just under 1,000”.

The number of people who have received their second dose and are considered fully vaccinated against COVID-19 continue to hover around 35 per cent for a second straight week to total 97,050 people. So far, 123,950 first doses have been administered.

Health experts have said that vaccinations levels must be “substantial” in order to reach herd immunity, the indirect protection that occurs when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.

The World Health Organisation has said that to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, “a substantial proportion of a population would need to be vaccinated, lowering the overall amount of virus able to spread in the whole population”.

The purpose-built buses, driven by army soldiers and staffed by public health nurses, have been stationed at strategic locations in densely populated communities have been well received by all groups including youth and the elderly, Clarke declared.

But he also noted that more females than males have come for the jabs and urged men to take the time to ensure they are better protected against the virus.

Though pleased with the response, Major Clarke is appealing to the public not to abandon the fixed vaccination sites in favour of the mobile sites to prevent the system from being overwhelmed.

He said: “The mobile vaccination sites are really for the people in the communities that we are going to and so if people come from outside of those communities they tend to overload the system, so if you drive to a mobile site when you could drive to a fixed site, it would overload the system for the pop up in the communities.“

He also encouraged members of the public visiting the mobile sites to stagger their visits rather than “come out at six o’clock and line up”.

COVID-19 vaccinations are to continue to be administered at a number of centres and pop-up sites over the weekend.

On Saturday, the vaccination centre at Building No. 2 Harbour Industrial Park, Harbour Road, St. Michael, will be opened from  10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

There will be pop-up sites at National Heroes Square, Bridgetown, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Massy Holetown, St. James, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Vaccinations will also be administered at UWI Cave Hill, between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.

The mobile unit will operate Saturday at Bonnetts Housing Area, Bonnetts, St. Michael, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and at Four Roads, St. John (by the post office), from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

On Sunday, the vaccination centre at Building No. 2 Harbour Industrial Park will open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., while the one at the Mile-and-a-Quarter Seventh Day Adventist Church, Mile-and-a-Quarter, St. Peter, will operate from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

There will be a community pop-up site at the North Stars Cricket Ground, Crab Hill, St. Lucy, from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

The mobile unit will be stationed at two St. Michael beaches: Brandons Beach, between 9:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., and Brownes Beach, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

All three vaccines – AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and Pfizer – will be available. Citizens should walk with their national identification cards, the officials said.
(SD)