Trinidad and Tobago's vaccination rollout to begin April 6

Trinidad and Tobago's vaccination rollout programme is expected to begin on April 6 with 33,600 vaccines from Covax.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh made the announcement on Saturday afternoon during a press conference, while cautioning that the schedule would be kept “if everything goes to plan.”

He explained that the vaccines, received through Covax, were en route from South Korea, but had to go through Brussels, Amsterdam, and Miami before arriving in TT on March 30 at 6.10 pm.

He said half of the vaccines would be stored at C40 in Chaguaramas and the other half at Couva Hospital. Then 3,000 doses would be sent to Tobago on April 1.

“The reason why we couldn’t communicate the total vaccination plan before this is because we were uncertain about the numbers. Because we didn’t want to alert people and communicate,  'We are vaccinating,' and then the numbers go down and then people get disappointed.”

He said the 33,000 doses would be used to continue to vaccinate frontline health care workers as well as those 60 and over at public health non-communicable diseases clinics. Members of the clinic would be vaccinated on their usual clinic days while members of the general public in the same category could make appointments to be vaccinated on non-clinic days.

Appointments could be made online, via phone, or in person at health care centres.