Yes­ter­day two ma­jor events took place in T&T. The first was the ad­min­is­ter­ing of the first set of COVID-19 vac­cine jabs in­to the arms of health­care work­ers and the sec­ond was the start of the Lenten pe­ri­od.

That the roll­out of the As­traZeneca vac­cine has fi­nal­ly start­ed in T&T is good news and we hope this marks the be­gin­ning of the end of the pan­dem­ic that has cost too many na­tion­als their lives and liveli­hoods.

The hope brought about by the vac­cine res­onates as it is in keep­ing with the Lenten mes­sage in which Chris­tians be­lieve Ash Wednes­day rep­re­sents the be­gin­ning of the count­down to the cru­ci­fix­ion of Je­sus Christ that led to his res­ur­rec­tion.

For Chris­tians, East­er is the most im­por­tant time of the year be­cause if there was no res­ur­rec­tion then there is no Chris­tian­i­ty. As the book of Corinthi­ans notes 'if Christ be not risen, then is our preach­ing is in vain, and your faith is al­so vain'.

In some ways the coun­try need­ed both of these events to hap­pen. The pan­dem­ic has al­ready claimed the lives of 138 peo­ple in T&T and sick­ened thou­sands. The death of every na­tion­al must still pain their friends and fam­i­lies as they suc­cumbed to a virus that the world on­ly found out about in De­cem­ber 2019.

It has al­so re­sult­ed in re­al pain for so many cit­i­zens who have ei­ther lost their busi­ness­es, are with­out a job or have had to deal with re­duced wages or hours of work.

The jab presents hope that with enough peo­ple vac­ci­nat­ed in a time­ly fash­ion it could lead to herd im­mu­ni­ty and the chance of us re­turn­ing to some sort of nor­mal­cy.

That nor­mal­cy will give us the best chance of turn­ing around a fail­ing econ­o­my. One in which the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance last week said had re­sult­ed in gov­ern­ment bor­row­ing to pay pub­lic of­fi­cers' salaries.

The coun­try al­so needs this Lenten pe­ri­od and East­er. Lent is a time of re­flec­tion in which Chris­tians prac­tise prayer, fast­ing, penance and alms­giv­ing with the be­lief that in so do­ing they may yet share, even a lit­tle, al­beit vic­ar­i­ous­ly, in the suf­fer­ings of Je­sus as he trav­elled that hard road to Cal­vary.

This so­ci­ety has suf­fered much over the last few years, par­tic­u­lar­ly our young women, who have paid the ul­ti­mate price of los­ing their lives at the hands of heinous men who be­lieve it is their right to bru­talise our women.

We hope that the Lenten sto­ry of self-re­flec­tion, of pur­ga­tion, cathar­sis and for­give­ness may lead those who are so in­clined to change their ways and learn to re­spect our women, chil­dren and the most vul­ner­a­ble in the so­ci­ety.

The coun­try col­lec­tive­ly wept for An­drea Bharath but in so do­ing we were al­so weep­ing for T&T as we tried to un­der­stand how so many of our young men have be­come so vi­o­lent with­out love and mer­cy. Per­haps this pe­ri­od of Lent will al­low for change. We sure­ly need it.