The nation’s Christmas gift for 2021

SLOWLY, WE are seeing an uptick in the number of people coming forward to be vaccinated against COVID19 in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG).

Unfortunately, it took over 400 new infections and four deaths in less than two weeks for some people to come around.

Despite the apparent increased willingness to be inoculated, with only 13,004 fully vaccinated and 6810 partially vaccinated persons out of a population of 109,000, we are still a long way off from achieving the herd immunity we seek so that our lives will return to some semblance of normalcy.

Yesterday, a leading local administrator called for a national campaign to have 1000 persons a day vaccinated over the next two months. Nigel Scott, the director of the SVG Community College in a post on his Facebook page mapped out one path to achieving herd immunity in time for Christmas. “We can do it. 7000 a week, 28,000 a month, 56,000 in two months. Along with the just under 20,000 already vaccinated we could hit the 75,000 mark before the end of November 2021.”

Although ambitious, Mr. Scott’s projection is not beyond the realm of possibility if we work together. On a practical level, all it would mean is that once every two to three weeks, each vaccinated person (fully or partially) would need to convince one other person to take the vaccine. And this is how the vaccine war will be won. It would take complete commitment by vaccinated people to show every unvaccinated person they meet why getting vaccinated is in their own interest and the good of the public; why even though one’s body is without doubt one’s own, the choices a person makes must take into consideration the wellbeing of others.

As Mr Scott so convincingly said in his post: “We can do it. Let us get the economy moving again.

Let us get SVG working again. Let us lift SVG higher. We need our students back in face to face classrooms, we need our small businesses thriving, we need tourism working again. Calling all teachers, Government employees, trade unionists, politicians, market vendors, taxi drivers, private sector employees, pastors, calypsonians…we can do this.

Those who have religious and medical reasons for not taking the vaccine, we hear you and we got you covered. This is for you as well. Our protection helps you. This is for the public good. Please encourage all who can take the vaccine to please do so. Together let us fight Covid-19. Sanitise, Mask up, Physically Distance and Vaccinate. Let us give our nation a Christmas gift for Christmas 2021.”