COVID vaccines are safe, says Dr Adrian Lorde

Prominent family physician and anti-doping official Dr Adrian Lorde has again assured Barbadians that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and highly recommended.

Addressing a religious service today at the Christ the King Anglican Church at Rock Dundo, St Michael to mark the 18^th Sunday after Pentecost, Dr Lorde advised that all three of the vaccines currently in Barbados – Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm – are efficacious enough to prevent serious illness, hospitalization or death.

In responding to suggestions by some that the vaccines were developed in record time, the medical doctor, who is also President of the Barbados Sports Medicine Association declared that they passed all the scrutiny that vaccines go through.

“There were no short-cuts and God gave us the science. Vaccination is a way of reducing transmission of the virus, not eliminating [it]; and it protects us from severe disease and death. They are effective and efficacious, especially now with the variants; and so far there have been no deaths in Barbados from anyone who has been vaccinated,” the chairman of the National Anti-Doping Commission stated.

Dr Lorde explained that after being vaccinated, it takes another two weeks to develop immunity from the virus.

“Over 231,400 persons have been given the vaccine in Barbados. There has been a 0.15 per cent reported reactions. People would get fever and headache and joint pain, tiredness or diarrhoea after the jab and a negligible number, three as far as I am told, who had what we call serious reactions. No deaths as far as I know,” he said.

He noted that globally, 6.1 billion people have had COVID-19 vaccines administered to 3.6 billion people. The vaccines are safe and highly recommended to all those who qualify. There are three vaccines in Barbados. The fellows going for the Pfizer and you know why. They make Viagra right? There is the AstraZeneca and the Sinophram; but some people chose for whatever reason not to take them,” the imminent physician stated.

“Vaccines are safe during pregnancy and breastfeeding and Pfizer has been found now to be safe in children between the ages of 12 and 17. And they are now working on the five to 11 age group, which we need to look at the science before we can make a determination on that,” Dr Lorde suggested.

“If we allow the COVID-19 virus to upset our lives and our livelihoods and do not get vaccinated and do not do all the other things, we will get more variants.  So I would advise you to make sense out of non-sense, take one of the shots. The best one is the one in your arm,” the medical practitioner declared while adding that the Delta variant produces 1,000 times more viruses than its counterparts.

Dr Lorde also urged Barbadians to get accustomed to wearing the face masks because “they will be with us for many more years to come.”

Two more persons in Barbados have died from COVID-19, bringing the number of deaths to 68.

A 50-year-old woman passed away last night on arrival at the Harrison’s Point Isolation Facility.  She had comorbidities and was unvaccinated.

Another woman, who was 47 years old, succumbed to the viral illness this morning at the facility.   She also had comorbidities and was unvaccinated. (emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)