Street talk on vaccines

On Wednesday I ventured out to the streets, to offer people an opportunity to voice any message of their choice to our leaders, or to the general public, through my weekly article.

My first conversation was with a woman sitting in her garden with two kittens frolicking around her.

“They say children have to get vaccinated, but parents are protesting,” she said. “After all the contradictory things you hear about the vaccine, who go want it? And if they don’t get it, the children go have to stay home. The teachers don’t want it either. So nobody go go to school? That is madness!”

I listened as she expressed her concerns about the vaccine and other covid-related issues. She admitted that it was confusing, owing to different sources of information.

“I feel everyone I ask for a message will speak about covid and vaccines,” I told her before leaving.

“Because everybody scared of it!” she said.

The male street vendor I approached next laughed.

“I don’t have anything to say. My wife is the one who likes to talk.”

A man strolling on the grounds of a holiday facility seemed excited to see me. He called out to an unseen person: “We have a guest!”

A guest is rare in these times of closed beaches, multiple closed businesses and zero tourism. His face fell somewhat when he realised I was there only to invite him to express himself in a public forum.

“I don’t want to say nothing, because the most I would do is cuss,” he said. “But the woman working upstairs will talk.”

She was not on the premises, so I journeyed on and encountered a pleasant young woman who was in attendance at a small shop. Had this been a Western movie, tumbleweed would have been rolling in the background, accompanied by the sound effects of whistling wind in a landscape void of other signs of life.

This vendor’s message, expressed while the vote for SoE extension was in progress in Parliament, was: “The SoE should be extended. It is a barrier, preventing the people who don’t want it extended from doing whatever they want. With the spread of covid, that will be chaotic.

"I think the Government knows what is best for citizens and if they think that is what is best, so be it.”

As many people were not out on the streets, I chose to have my final conversation with a woman who was sitting alone outside an establishment.

“Right now leaders all over the world are operating in a spirit of stupor,” she began. “They want to mandate the people to take the vaccine without knowing what is going into people’s body.

"Why are they forcing it on people? The Government need to not make it mandatory. They don’t know people’s health issues and how it affects them. There is a lot of info out there,,,some real, some fake. A lot of people bosses telling them they can’t work without the vaccine. I know people who take the vaccine just to pay mortgage!”

I asked her if she knew anyone who had had covid.

“I had it. When I had bad fever for two days I went and get swab. It was very uncomfortable. Then I was in bed for three weeks' home quarantine.

"I felt my life was leaving my body. It didn’t affect my lungs, thank God, but I had fever and body pain. I keep my immune up with saffron, ginger, a lot of herbs and Vitamin C. A nurse called me every morning and afternoon to ask 'How you doing?' And the police came and checked on me because I wasn’t answering the phone for two days.

"I just didn’t want to talk to no one. They were checking to see if I was okay because I live alone. There are still some nice police out there.

"God is good. I had a lot of people praying for me here, in Trinidad and across the globe. I couldn’t pray for myself. My body was so pained. My hair was thinning and dropping out. But through it all I give God the glory.

"All of this is about the coming of Jesus. It is about 'love one another as I have loved you.'

"But this vaccine only dividing people. There is no love.”

With so much information and misinformation in circulation, many people are confused and no one seems to know in whom to trust. Whose voice of reason, compassion and respect for all can be the breakthrough?