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Sunday, July 20, 2025

The mandatory vaccine debate

by

1465 days ago
20210716

A mass COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve kicked off yes­ter­day with thou­sands of cit­i­zens flock­ing to vac­ci­na­tion sites across the coun­try to be in­oc­u­lat­ed - some with their every first jabs, oth­ers their sec­ond dos­es.

It was heart­en­ing to see that so many peo­ple want to get vac­ci­nat­ed.

Across the world, it is peo­ple who have been ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed who are giv­ing them­selves a fight­ing chance against the dis­ease.

In the midst of this vac­cine roll­out, there is now a na­tion­al de­bate about manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion, sparked by no less a per­son than Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who made it clear on Thurs­day in an in­ter­view, that his Gov­ern­ment is pre­pared to go the route of mak­ing vac­cines manda­to­ry if cit­i­zens did not heed the call to vac­ci­nate.

View­points on whether Gov­ern­ment can do this, range from it re­quir­ing a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty in the Par­lia­ment to a sim­ple change in the pub­lic health or­di­nance, giv­en that we are in a pub­lic health pan­dem­ic and un­der a State of Emer­gency. The Prime Min­is­ter and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al will have to de­cide what is re­quired should the coun­try get to such stage.

But at a time when the world is fight­ing a virus that seems no clos­er to go­ing away now than it did at the same time last year, one would think the Gov­ern­ment would not have to yield a big stick to get cit­i­zens to do what they need to pro­tect them­selves.

Yes, we un­der­stand ful­ly that some peo­ple le­git­i­mate­ly can­not be vac­ci­nat­ed, but the ma­jor­i­ty who do not face such chal­lenges should take the jab.

The Gov­ern­ment should not have to leg­is­late to get cit­i­zens to do what is need­ed to save their own lives. Many among us are aware that in or­der to en­ter schools, chil­dren have to be vac­ci­nat­ed against a range of things, in­clud­ing po­lio, tetanus, yel­low fever and measles.

To­day, the world is in cri­sis be­cause of COVID 19 and its emerg­ing vari­ants. In coun­tries where vac­cines are aplen­ty, gov­ern­ments are us­ing vary­ing tac­tics to get cit­i­zens in­oc­u­lat­ed. Yet, many poor coun­tries are beg­ging for vac­cines for cit­i­zens who want to get vac­ci­nat­ed but can’t.

T&T has over­come its own vac­cine hur­dles to in ac­quir­ing an ad­e­quate sup­ply. The ju­ry is out on whether the Gov­ern­ment will have to make vac­ci­na­tions manda­to­ry. Truth be told, with­out mass vac­ci­na­tions, there is no hope of a re­turn to nor­mal­cy.

The coun­try’s bor­ders re­open to­day, wel­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al flights and trav­ellers. But those cit­i­zens who con­tin­ue to re­sist vac­ci­na­tion will have no pro­tec­tion against the vari­ants, of which the dead­liest is the Delta now ram­pant in the Unit­ed States, which may al­so en­ter with this ac­tiv­i­ty.

As of yes­ter­day, T&T was 18 shy of los­ing 1,000 peo­ple to the virus.

On the oth­er end, 234,431 peo­ple had re­ceived their first dose of vac­cine and 151,831 were ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed. These cit­i­zens did what was re­quired to save lives.

How­ev­er, whether the Gov­ern­ment can or can­not make vac­cines manda­to­ry should not in­flu­ence do­ing what is right to save lives and to get this econ­o­my go­ing again to save jobs and liveli­hoods. The longer we re­main in this state, the worse things will be­come. No one wants that.


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