The praise heaped on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley by the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) for this coun­try’s han­dling of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic was well de­served.

Af­ter the first case of the virus was de­tect­ed in T&T, Dr Row­ley proved that he had a firm grip on the reins of lead­er­ship as he veered this coun­try away from what could have been a path of chaos and con­fu­sion, that many oth­er coun­tries faced.

Al­most a year lat­er and the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­man­deer­ing of the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues to be ad­mired, now it is be­ing done on the world stage.

While some of his de­ci­sions have been crit­i­cised by some, as is to be ex­pect­ed, Dr Row­ley’s move to close schools to pre­vent a spread among chil­dren and the pro­vi­sion of grants to cit­i­zens eco­nom­i­cal­ly im­pact­ed have proven that guid­ance, a good one at that, of­ten de­ter­mines the out­come of a wor­ry­ing sit­u­a­tion.

On Wednes­day, this coun­try en­tered an his­toric phase in the man­age­ment of the coro­n­avirus, as front­line health­care work­ers re­ceived the first jabs of the vac­cine gift­ed to this coun­try by Bar­ba­dos.

How­ev­er, amid the glim­mers of hope lies sev­er­al grey ar­eas as it re­lates to when this coun­try will re­ceive its own sup­ply of the very much in de­mand As­traZeneca vac­cine.

On­ly on Fri­day in Par­lia­ment, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh re­vealed that come Feb­ru­ary 25, this coun­try would be told by the WHO ex­act­ly when it will re­ceive the vac­cines through the CO­V­AX fa­cil­i­ty.

Rewind to Jan­u­ary 31, when the min­is­ter an­nounced this coun­try would re­ceive the As­traZeneca vac­cines, not the Pfiz­er or Mod­er­na as cit­i­zens were pre­vi­ous­ly told, he stat­ed they would be here at the end of Feb­ru­ary or the first week in March.

But now the pop­u­la­tion is be­ing told it will soon get a de­fin­i­tive date.

For some, it may seem like much ado about noth­ing as it per­tains to the ex­act date, but we must un­der­stand the need for clear and pre­cise in­for­ma­tion with re­gards to some­thing that not on­ly pre­vents the spread of the virus but rep­re­sents hope to the coun­try that this dark pe­ri­od is com­ing to an end.

This news­pa­per has asked be­fore about the gov­ern­ment’s vac­ci­na­tion plan.

And while the gov­ern­ment in­sists there is one, the flip-flop­ping with dates and the gaffe by the Health Min­is­ter over the ori­gins of the 2,000 dos­es, do very lit­tle to help at this crit­i­cal time to en­gen­der pub­lic trust.

Some cit­i­zens are look­ing on jeal­ous­ly at neigh­bour­ing Caribbean coun­tries like Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca and St Lu­cia smooth­ly roll­out their vac­ci­na­tion plans.

There is no doubt Trinidad and To­ba­go will get its vac­cines, but the mixed mes­sages re­gard­ing the when’s and the how’s must come to an end.

The na­tion is ea­ger­ly await­ing a turn­ing point in the COVID-19 fight lo­cal­ly.

All the pop­u­la­tion re­quires are trans­par­ent and un­wa­ver­ing an­swers about the vac­ci­na­tion plan so it can put a full stop to this COVID night­mare.