Two new vac­ci­na­tion lo­ca­tions will be in­tro­duced from April 22nd to April 25th at the Pad­dock, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah and the Na­tion­al Ra­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua, to in­crease the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the COVID-19 vac­cine to peo­ple with ex­ist­ing ap­point­ments. The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of Health:

From Thurs­day April 22nd to Sun­day April 25th, 2021 the Min­istry of Health will ac­ti­vate two new vac­ci­na­tion lo­ca­tions at the Pad­dock, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah and the Na­tion­al Ra­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua, to in­crease the rate of ad­min­is­tra­tion of the COVID-19 vac­cine to peo­ple with ex­ist­ing ap­point­ments.

Three ad­di­tion­al Des­ig­nat­ed COVID-19 Vac­cine Fa­cil­i­ties have al­so been ac­ti­vat­ed (Mor­vant, Care­nage and St He­le­na) to in­crease vac­cine de­liv­ery. To date, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20,000 per­sons have re­ceived the COVID-19 vac­cine in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Vac­cine ac­cep­tance lev­els with­in the groups of el­i­gi­ble per­sons con­tin­ue to be demon­strat­ed by the high num­ber of peo­ple who have al­ready made COVID-19 vac­cine ap­point­ments. As a re­sult, the Min­istry of Health is ad­vis­ing the pop­u­la­tion that it will in­crease the rate of the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the first dose of COVID-19 vac­cines from the cur­rent stock of vac­cines.

All ex­ist­ing COVID-19 vac­cine ap­point­ments for the Des­ig­nat­ed COVID-19 Vac­ci­na­tion Fa­cil­i­ties will be ho­n­oured and brought for­ward to the week end­ing Sun­day April 25th, 2021. The vac­ci­na­tion of el­i­gi­ble peo­ple, us­ing the cur­rent stock of vac­cines, will end in ap­prox­i­mate­ly one week. The re­quired quan­ti­ty of vac­cines will be held to ad­min­is­ter the sec­ond dose.

This process has al­ready been ini­ti­at­ed. While new ap­point­ments will not be giv­en at this time, health­care work­ers, peo­ple with non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases and those who are 60 years and old­er may con­tact the var­i­ous COVID-19 Vac­ci­na­tion Fa­cil­i­ties, via the call-in or What­sApp num­bers, to be in­clud­ed in the list of el­i­gi­ble per­sons who are in­ter­est­ed in re­ceiv­ing the COVID-19 vac­cine, when new stock is avail­able. No walk-in ap­point­ments will be fa­cil­i­tat­ed at this time.

The Min­istry re­minds the pub­lic that all per­sons with un­der­ly­ing med­ical con­di­tions should li­aise with their health­care provider be­fore tak­ing the COVID-19 vac­cine.

It should al­so be not­ed that the fol­low­ing per­sons should NOT get the COVID-19 Vac­cine at this time:

o Preg­nant and breast­feed­ing women

o Peo­ple younger than 18 years of age

o Peo­ple with a his­to­ry of se­vere re­ac­tions to a com­po­nent in the vac­cine

On Vac­ci­na­tion day On the day of vac­ci­na­tion per­sons are en­cour­aged to:

 Have a good meal or non-al­co­holic bev­er­age

 Wear cloth­ing that will pro­vide easy ac­cess to the up­per arm for vac­ci­na­tion  Bring to the fa­cil­i­ty:

o Valid form of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (e.g. Dri­ver’s Per­mit, Na­tion­al Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, Pass­port) o Im­mu­niza­tion Card o Clin­ic Card (where ap­plic­a­ble) Af­ter re­ceipt of the 1st dose of the vac­cine:

 The Im­mu­niza­tion Card will be up­dat­ed with rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion in­clud­ing the type of COVID-19 vac­cine ad­min­is­tered, the date re­ceived and the next ap­point­ment date. An Im­mu­niza­tion card will be pro­vid­ed for those who do not have a card.

 Per­sons will re­main in ob­ser­va­tion for 30 min­utes be­fore leav­ing the fa­cil­i­ty.

 Mem­bers of the pub­lic will be con­tact­ed to be re­mind­ed of their next ap­point­ment date. Per­sons should re­turn to the same fa­cil­i­ty for their sec­ond dose of the vac­cine.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, vac­ci­na­tion is vol­un­tary. On­ly vac­cines that have at­tained WHO ap­proval and have un­der­gone rig­or­ous sci­en­tif­ic and clin­i­cal analy­sis, in keep­ing with the high­est vac­cine test­ing stan­dards, are used in Trinidad and To­ba­go.