Deyalsingh: 29,237 people vaccinated in Trinidad and Tobago

HEALTH Minister Terrence Deyalsingh disclosed that 29, 237 people in have received their covid19 vaccines to date and the figure is expected to surpass 30,000 by the end of Saturday. He made the disclosure at the ministry's virtual news conference at Saturday.

"To date, the figures I got this morning, we have vaccinated 29,237 persons. So this weekend we are crossing the 30,000 threshold that might have been crossed this morning already." Deyalsingh attributed this to a combination of public health centres previously designated as covid19 vaccination sites and the addition of mass vaccination sites on Thursday, to increase the number of people who can be vaccinated.

As he reminded the public that Government started the mass vaccination drive on April 6, Deyalsingh said the initial target was to perform 1,000 vaccinations per day. "From day one, we started to meet and beat those targets."

Responding to a question about the ages of people being vaccinated, Deyalsingh reiterated that part of phase one of the vaccination programme involved frontline health care workers. He said those workers were vaccinated "regardless of age." Phase one, he continued, was also dedicated to people 60 years and over with non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Deyalsingh said these included people in this age group who were registered in NCD clinics at various public health centres and other members of the public with NCDs.

He said phase two included Members of Parliament "regardless of age" and their spouses. Deyalsingh himself was vaccinated on April 6. The Prime Minister was supposed to be vaccinated in Tobago on the same day but a test confirmed he had the covid19 virus. Dr Rowley has been in quarantine at the Prime Minister's official residence in Blenheim, Tobago since April 6.

"Today as you know we are doing members of the media, regardless of age, because we consider them to be the frontline media workers," Deyalsingh identified members of the Judiciary and local government representatives among the other people being vaccinated in phase two "regardless of age."

He said that vaccinating members of central and local government was important because without these people being able to function "the public would suffer." Deyalsingh said the same principle applied to other front-line workers such as police officers, defence force personnel and workers employed with agencies responsible for public utilities such as water, electricity and telecommunications.

He disclosed that people who are blind and have other physical disabilities will be targeted for vaccination in phase three of the programme. Echoing a view expressed by Rowley about covid19 vigilance, Deyalsingh said, "The issue of pandemic fatigue which has set in, blinds us to the fact that the pandemic continues to rage.

He said Trinidad and Tobago would do well to note that as of Saturday, there were 146,466,095 covid19 cases worldwide and 3,103,131 deaths. Deyalsingh said the latter figure means that three million families across the globe have lost loved ones to covid19. He said that renewed covid19 surges in different countries and associated deaths because of them, effectively silences the actions of some people locally about the need to relax covid19 protocols.