Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith is con­fi­dent that more po­lice of­fi­cers will be vac­ci­nat­ed as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) steps up ef­forts to in­crease vac­ci­na­tion rates among of­fi­cers.

Dur­ing Sat­ur­day's press con­fer­ence, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley gave sta­tis­tics that showed that on­ly 43 per cent of po­lice of­fi­cers have been vac­ci­nat­ed, while on­ly 50 per cent of nurs­es have tak­en the jab. On­ly 35 per cent of mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force have tak­en the vac­cine and the up­take among prison of­fi­cers is on­ly 35 per cent. On­ly 20 per cent of pris­on­ers have been vac­ci­nat­ed, the PM not­ed.

Grif­fith said that the TTPS' vac­ci­na­tion rate was high­er than the na­tion­al av­er­age.

"400,000 adults have been ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed out of an adult pop­u­la­tion of over one mil­lion which means that rough­ly 38 per cent of the adult pop­u­la­tion has been vac­ci­nat­ed. The TTPS is by far high­er than the ra­tio of the adult pop­u­la­tion vac­ci­nat­ed."

He said, how­ev­er, he will con­tin­ue work­ing to en­sure that more po­lice of­fi­cers are vac­ci­nat­ed.

"Even if it is that the ra­tio for vac­ci­na­tion is high­er in the TTPS than the adult pop­u­la­tion, I ex­pect that the TTPS to be at a much high­er stan­dard and if it is that I have to go to each and every po­lice of­fi­cer to speak to them and ex­plain to them the im­por­tance of them be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed, we would do so. We are on a very ag­gres­sive cam­paign to try to in­flu­ence all of­fi­cers to un­der­stand the im­por­tance of them be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed."

Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Den­nis Pul­chan ad­mit­ted that the vac­ci­na­tion rates are not high in the prison sys­tem but said au­thor­i­ties will con­tin­ue to work hard to ed­u­cate all groups about the im­por­tance of get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed.

"This is still not manda­to­ry, it is op­tion­al. We can’t force any­one. We have sen­si­tised all in­mates, all of­fi­cers. We have shown them the deaths of in­mates and the deaths of of­fi­cers and at the end of the day, it still boils down to choice. I hope that good sense pre­vails as we have done every­thing we can."

He said it was not on­ly the Prison Ser­vice but that vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy was an is­sue that is wide­spread in the coun­try.

The Sun­day Guardian called Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds for a com­ment on the low vac­ci­na­tion rates among law en­force­ment of­fi­cers but he did not an­swer the call.

Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion: Some 70 per cent to be vac­ci­nat­ed by Oc­to­ber

Pres­i­dent of the Reg­is­tered Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion Idi Stu­art said the 50 per cent sta­tis­tic of nurs­es vac­ci­nat­ed shows that their av­er­age was bet­ter than the na­tion­al av­er­age.

He said they ex­pect by Oc­to­ber that about 70 per cent of nurs­es will be vac­ci­nat­ed.

"We be­lieve that with the rein­tro­duc­tion of vac­cine al­ter­na­tives, more per­sons will make them­selves avail­able. I think our pro­fes­sion is do­ing good and I think it is a mat­ter of time the rate in­creas­es. The as­so­ci­a­tion will con­tin­ue to en­cour­age our mem­bers to be vac­ci­nat­ed."