– VP Jagdeo

THE entire population will be vaccinated by the end of this year as government will allocate resources in Budget 2021 to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on citizens and the economy. This was disclosed by Vice-President (VP), Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, during a press conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Tuesday. “Although it will be purely on a voluntary basis, we are hoping that before the end of the year that all Guyanese can be vaccinated and we are hoping that it would be done much earlier… it’s going to be costly and it will take a lot of effort but we have to do this and get it done so all efforts are being made in that regard,” Jagdeo said. The VP also noted that Guyana will benefit from donations of coronavirus vaccines and systems are being created to ensure these are received and stored properly. Altogether, thus far, Guyana has been able to secure 273,000 vaccine doses which could be used to immunise some 136,500 individuals, or approximately 18 per cent of the population. The government is in talks with India, Russia and China, in addition to a number of multilateral agencies and manufacturers of the vaccines, to secure more for the population since vaccines are the means of exiting the pandemic. Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, has continuously emphasised that the vaccines will be used to immunise frontline workers, the elderly and persons with co-morbidities (other underlying medical conditions) first. There are about 22,000 healthcare workers who are all eligible to receive the vaccines while the remainder will go to the other groups.