Rowley warns of delay in accessing covid19 vaccines

THE Prime Minister has said the whole world, including the Caribbean, is now facing delays in the availability of various covid19 vaccines.

But he remains optimistic that TT will get access.

Speaking at Thursday’s post-Cabinet briefing at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, Dr Rowley added that Caricom had accepted an offer by the African Union to help expedite vaccine access in this region,

“We are all anxiously awaiting the use of the approved vaccines so that we can vaccinate our population. starting with the healthcare-givers and the elderly,” he said.

TT was part of Covax, the world effort to develop and distribute a vaccine, and with 100 other countries pays in significant sums, he said, to help fund the research and development of vaccines.

He said Covax has a formula for fair distribution, to allow smaller countries access to vaccines, rather than rich countries keeping them for themselves.

“No country can isolate itself, inoculate itself and be safe from the (virus), by the very nature of its transmission,” he pointed out.

Rowley said two vaccines have so far been approved, one each respectively in the UK and US, even as others were pending approval to increase vaccine stocks.

But, he noted, “You are seeing in the news two things. One, the anticipated percentage that should have been available is not yet available. Even...the US, with the huge US government resource base,has fallen very short.”

He said in the US now the logistics of carrying out inoculations were as challenging as other aspects of developing/producing a vaccine.

Saying TT has the same issue, he said, “Since we don’t have the vaccine, we have been preparing and preparing and preparing.”

However, “The number of vaccines is not what we expected it to be at this time.

"Also, there is a hint that it is not going as fast as it should where it is supposed to go, even within one of the larger countries where the vaccine is being handled.

“From what has been done so far, you are hearing complaints from some quarters that the formula is not working as smoothly as we thought it would work.”

Even some US state governors have complained of not getting the number of doses they had expected, he said.

“With the Covax, in Europe, some countries are accusing other countries of having it for their population, which is what we anticipated.” That exact expectation had driven the establishment of the Covax arrangement, he added.

“One of our experts would have told our national population that we have been told that the Covax availability would be with us sometime soon, and we are anticipating through PAHO (Pan American Health Organisation) our proportion will come to us.

“As of now I cannot tell you what that number is like, given what I’ve just said to you, that the number of available vaccines is not as clear-cut as it was supposed or expected to be in the global picture."

He said he was keen to learn how much vaccine PAHO has, even as the population would also be told.

“Until we have it in our hand, we are simply anticipating the process will work and we can start vaccinating our population.”

Rowley hoped other manufacturers such as Johnson and Johnson would also get approval for their vaccines, so as to increase the numbers available.

He said he had recently chaired a meeting of heads of Caricom, which was “very concerned” over the accessibility of vaccines and the functioning of Covax. As to whether the region had to make its voice heard, he said Caricom issued a statement urging vaccines be made available to small countries. Caricom is monitoring this and liaising with those people who can help.

“There’s a contact between us and the African Union, which is offering to help us not be left behind. The Prime Minister of Barbados (Mia Mottley) is in direct contact with some of our colleagues out there, and she is reporting to me.

“We have agreed to accept the assistance that is offered by the African Union, people who, because they are a larger bloc, they have a little more clout.

“There’s a relationship building between Caricom and the large group of African countries that are in this whole world effort to get our populations inoculated.”

In the question session, the PM noted that the South African strain of covid19 and UK variant were now being found in this hemisphere.

Rowley beseeched people to act responsibly during the pandemic and not go partying, which he dubbed, “folly on steroids.”

While people classify themselves, the PM said no group of people is excluded from the hazard of the virus by virtue of their phenotype or geographical location, and no one was better than anyone else. The whole world is affected, he said, including some countries who had thought they had beaten it.

Rowley suggested, “Maybe what the virus is trying to teach us is that we are all human beings.”