Fully-vaccinated COVID-19 patient passes

After months of detailing each COVID- 19 death to be an unvaccinated case, health authorities reported Thursday the first known fully inoculated patient to die from the disease. 

And against the backdrop of health officials persistently declaring that the vaccines are the most effective available tool to prevent serious illness, hospitalization or death, the government’s chief medical advisor said on Thursday that the message remains unchanged. 

Responding in the wake of the death this morning of a fully vaccinated, 67-year-old woman with comorbidities, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Kenneth George said “death is an unfortunate course in life”. 

He noted that an investigation was being carried out to get to the bottom of why the woman passed away although she was completely vaccinated. 

“We have told the public that vaccines offer the best protection for persons against COVID. We never told the public that vaccines will provide complete protection. The unfortunate incident, the elderly lady who died, she had comorbidities. I do not know what the final results of the investigation will show, but you will have people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated die at some point in time,” the chief medical officer told Barbados TODAY. 

The top medical official argued that what the government was trying to prevent, was premature death. 

Dr George also weighed in on the record seven COVID-related deaths of the past two days. 

“We remain extremely concerned. Persons are coming in very ill. Once they come in hypoxic [experiencing inadequate levels of oxygen in the tissues and cells], their prognosis tends to be not good,” he warned. 

“We will continue to tell Barbadians that their best hope with respect to combatting COVID, particularly at this time of high spread, is to follow the protocols and make sure you take good public health guidance and be vaccinated,” Dr George stated. 

President of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP) Dr Lynda Williams said while she needed to know the details surrounding the death of the fully-vaccinated woman, the odds were still in favour of the injection. 

Dr Williams said there could be a variety of factors contributing to her death. 

“I don’t have any details. I don’t know if she was somewhere immuno-compromised. There could be so many factors. Depends on when she was vaccinated… I don’t know,” the BAMP leader told Barbados TODAY. 

“To me, you know, the odds are still great; because if one in 71people is fully vaccinated as opposed to 70 out of 71, the odds are still very much in favour of vaccination no matter how we look at it.” 

Prime Minister Mia Mottley has also been emphasising the virtues of the vaccine which she suggested could be the key to her government removing the current restrictions substantially or altogether. 

The Prime Minister has even suggested the country could be returned to some form of normalcy, if 50,000 first doses are administered by November 30. So far, the target of 10 000 administered doses a week has been missed. Last Friday, September 24, only 6,500 of the jabs had been delivered. (emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)