On Sat­ur­day, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh de­liv­ered some wel­com­ing news to the pop­u­la­tion, an­nounc­ing that this coun­try will be re­ceiv­ing be­tween 100,000 to 120,000 dos­es of the vac­cine to fight COVID-19.

He de­tailed that the As­traZenec­ca vac­cine would be used al­low­ing be­tween 50,000 to 60,000 peo­ple to be vac­ci­nat­ed in the first in­stance.

The vac­cines, he said, would reach this coun­try by the end of this month in­to ear­ly March.

The news no doubt opens a win­dow of op­ti­mism for many who have been ques­tion­ing if the Gov­ern­ment has con­crete and de­fin­i­tive plans for the roll-out of its vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve.

Last Thurs­day, pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce T&T, Pa­tri­cia Ghany ex­pressed that she feared this coun­try could be among the last to ful­ly re-open be­cause of the seem­ing­ly slow pace at which COVID-19 vac­cines were be­ing im­port­ed.

Ghany called for a “wide­spread vac­ci­na­tion plan...to en­sure the ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion is vac­ci­nat­ed in the short­est pos­si­ble time, ide­al­ly by the mid­dle of the year at lat­est.”

Her con­cerns were cen­tred around the ini­tial an­nounce­ment by the Health Min­is­ter that 25,000 cit­i­zens would be vac­ci­nat­ed against the coro­n­avirus on a phased ba­sis lat­er this year.

Now the pop­u­la­tion has learned of a brand new plan.

While it is en­cour­ag­ing, it al­so leaves room for am­bi­gu­i­ty.

On Jan­u­ary 6, Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh said the Mod­er­na vac­cine, based on re­search, was more ide­al for this coun­try even though the Pfiz­er vac­cine had been ap­proved for the re­gion through the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion and Pan Amer­i­ca Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Now the coun­try is be­ing told that As­traZenec­ca vac­cine would be the ad­min­is­tered in this coun­try.

It is un­der­stand­able there would be teething prob­lems in the ear­ly stages of any project, but a COVID fa­tigued cit­i­zen­ry may be wary of be­ing told one thing, then an­oth­er, on­ly for the plan to change again—de­spite how promis­ing it may seem.

While most peo­ple have been wear­ing masks and ad­her­ing to all health reg­u­la­tions, they are ea­ger to re­turn to some sem­blance of nor­mal­cy; for busi­ness­es to boom; for their strand­ed loved ones to re­turn home; for schools to ful­ly re­open; for the emo­tion­al and men­tal heal­ing to be­gin—all of which hinges on a sol­id, un­wa­ver­ing vac­ci­na­tion plan and dri­ve.

It is, af­ter all, what this en­dur­ing pop­u­la­tion needs and de­serves dur­ing this leg of the COVID marathon.