CHARLES KONG SOO

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh de­scribed the steady turnout of peo­ple at a vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day as “an ex­cel­lent gift” ahead of his birth­day to­day.

He was re­spond­ing to re­porters’ ques­tions dur­ing a roll­out of John­son and John­son sin­gle-dose COVID-19 vac­cines by the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s (NWRHA) on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade.

Com­ment­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s an­nounce­ment of vac­ci­na­tion safe zones which will be com­ing in­to ef­fect from Oc­to­ber 11, Deyals­ingh said: “There is ab­solute­ly no dis­crim­i­na­tion. It’s a way to open up the econ­o­my and coun­try safe­ly and for peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in it.

“It’s hap­pen­ing around the world, it’s not a Trinidad and To­ba­go idea. This has been tried and proven in France, Italy all over the world. There’s ab­solute­ly no dis­crim­i­na­tion, peo­ple can make a choice. The choice is yours.”

Deyals­ingh said while peo­ple who are flout­ing pub­lic health re­stric­tions by at­tend­ing (zess­er) par­ties are in the mi­nor­i­ty, all it takes is just one spark for in­fec­tions to spread.

He said the Delta vari­ant, which has been de­tect­ed in this coun­try, posed an even greater dan­ger and ap­pealed to peo­ple to do their part by not con­gre­gat­ing in par­ty set­tings.

Deyals­ingh said T&T’s health sys­tem hasn’t col­lapsed like oth­er coun­tries where peo­ple can’t get a bed and the coun­try is on the right path.

Al­so present at the vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve were Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez, Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) Pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud, and Dr An­tho­ny Parkin­son, of the NWRHA.