Economic recovery after covid19 linked to vaccination

The financial damage wrought by covid19 can be felt across many economies, from increased unemployment rates to businesses closures.

For the last 15 months many businesses have experienced interrupted operations or closure. As we have seen in many countries, when cases fall and social distancing is relaxed, it leads to a rise in both economic and social activity and the spread of infection.

Vaccination interrupts this dynamic by limiting transmission. As more and more people get vaccinated, the risk associated with relaxing public health regulations is reduced, allowing a wide range of social and economic activity to safely resume.

Domestically the pace at which commercial and social activity can resume safely mainly depends on how effectively mass vaccination can be accomplished. This will in turn depend on the schedule of vaccine arrivals, the quantities, the rate at which vaccines get into arms and the level of vaccine acceptance. While choosing to get vaccinated is ultimately a personal decision, it can also be viewed as a way to reignite our economy and society.

To this end, various business service organisations and associations have come together to launch the Let’s Do Our Part campaign. Interested parties can visit ttbeatcovid19.com to access the resources and various creative assets. Effort has been made to provide individuals with simple prompts and reminders for use in their business places and media platforms, including social media. All the resources available were developed to be consistent with the advice and guidance given by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the Ministry of Health.

The business community also continues to support the "vaccinate and operate" drive to initially vaccinate all frontline workers and allow businesses to reopen responsibly. Public-private-sector partnerships have proven to be an effective way to execute mass vaccinations, and the offer from the private sector to assist in various areas of the vaccination programme remains open. These proposals for providing support relate to offering locations that can be used as mass vaccination sites as more vaccines become available, since easy-to-access vaccination sites can lend support to the drive. Technical resources that may be required to provide additional logistical support are also available if needed.

The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its May 2021 Economic Outlook noted that “some countries are recovering much faster than others. Korea and the United States are reaching pre-pandemic per capita income levels after about 18 months while much of Europe is expected to take nearly three years to recover. In Mexico and South Africa, it could take between three and five years.”

Even though vaccines are now available, they are in limited quantities. WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been lobbying for vaccine equity, remarking at the virtual fifth sitting of the OECS Assembly that Caribbean economies cannot reopen until they have been vaccinated and calling for an end to what he termed “the two track pandemic”.

There appears to be a high demand for vaccinations, and they will continue to arrive in tranches over time. At the time of writing, roughly ten per cent of our population have been partly vaccinated with 2.1 per cent receiving their second shot. Therefore, if we are to maintain what seems to be a decline in our current infection rate and to allow certain sectors to reopen before we have achieved herd immunity, we must continue to promote and practice responsible behaviour.

Accessing credible information is critical to address the pockets of vaccine hesitancy. To this end, we applaud the many private sector organisations that have voluntarily arranged various initiatives to promote vaccine literacy among their publics. With a collaborative mindset, we have full confidence that TT can recover.

We invite everyone to be the one! Let’s each do our part to beat covid19.

(Sumbitted by the Trinindad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce)