Concern over mobile vaccine service

The social activist who organized a march against mandated vaccinations says he has been monitoring the Ministry of Health and Wellness and Ministry of Education’s move to visit schools to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to students and has suggested that there are parents who oppose it.

Winston Clarke claimed that since Minister of Education Kay McConney and Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw announced that the Ministry of Health was coordinating a vaccination bus to go around to secondary schools, parents have been calling him voicing their concerns about the move.

He said while he is aware that parents must sign a consent form before their charges get the jab, he is hoping that there are no ‘underhanded’ efforts to pressure them to sign.

“Parents have been contacting me asking me if I know where they can get the exemptions from. They have been telling me not their child. They are afraid that the authorities might use other children in the schools to give their children peer pressure.

“Parents are afraid that it would be done without their knowledge. There have been instances where family members have taken children and got them vaccinated without the mother or father. There have been situations like that and parents are really upset about it,” Clarke said.

Chief Education Officer Dr Archer-Bradshaw, while making it clear that no student would be vaccinated without a signed consent form, said parents should make the best decision for their charges by taking steps to protect them against serious side effects of the COVID-19 virus. She appealed to parents to sign the forms to allow their children to get the jab.

Last week, co-coordinator of the National Vaccination Programme Major David Clarke told Barbados TODAY that from this week, students across the island will be getting COVID-19 vaccines at school. However, Major Clarke declined to comment on how many students ages 12 and up are expected to get the jab through the Ministry of Health’s mobile vaccine unit. He however indicated that so far, some schools have a short list of students to be vaccinated and explained that those students would be sent to the polyclinics for the jab.

Meanwhile, Winston Clarke, who is also the coordinator of the steering committee of the Barbados Concerned Citizens said he believes that there are parents who fear their children getting the vaccine because of information they have been hearing about the different types of vaccine. He said parents, without being pushed, have been doing their own research regarding the vaccines.

Clarke argued that statistics show that the vaccine does not prevent people from contracting COVID-19 and also stressed that the virus does not cause the majority of children who contract it serious harm.

“It is just like the flu and the flu kills thousands of people during the year, it is just not publicized,” Clarke said. (AH)