— President Ali says as he encourages people to get vaccinated

A ‘vaccination passport’ has been touted by many countries as a means of permitting safe, international travel once again, and President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, highlighted that this may become a tool that Guyana adopts in future.

“To get back to normalcy, the introduction of a mass vaccination passport is being contemplated by many countries. In fact, we have already seen countries lower entry requirements for vaccinated persons,” the President said on Wednesday during a press conference at the State House.

And, the President reasoned, “We here in Guyana will soon have to consider this option.”

Moments before the President made these remarks, the United Kingdom (UK) Guardian reported that international travellers will be asked to verify their COVID-19 vaccination and testing status using a smartphone app. This is thought of as an electronic vaccine passport.

As reported in the Guardian, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Oxford, Christopher Dye, told the UK science and technology select committee on Wednesday morning that certificates or vaccine passports for international travel were likely to be in place for the long term.

These passports would be a way of verifying that people have been fully vaccinated — that is, received all of their required doses of the COVID-19 vaccines. In Guyana, the Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and Sputnik V vaccines are being used. For people to be fully vaccinated, they are required to take two doses of one of these vaccines.

While speaking about these vaccine passports, the President also emphasised that the pandemic is far from over and reminded members of the media that science has concluded that vaccination is the exit strategy of the pandemic.

“My Government has launched an exceptionally aggressive vaccination programme to achieve herd immunity in the shortest possible time frame…. As you are aware, sourcing the vaccines is a global challenge, and we have met it head-on,” the President said.

He also underscored that the government has spent millions of dollars in procuring vaccines and billions of dollars, in total, for the COVID-19 response. He also explained that vaccines come with a shelf life and carry enormous costs for cold storage and transportation.

“While the Government is taking every step to have everyone vaccinated, it is the responsibility of every citizen, though not mandatory, to understand the importance of vaccination,” he added.

On Wednesday, Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, said that as of Tuesday, 128,740 people had received at least their first COVID-19 ‘jab’. Additionally, 2,941 people have already received their second dose, which means that they are fully immunised.

The Health Minister explained that for the country to return to some semblance of normalcy, herd immunity — through vaccination — would have to be achieved. That means that about 500,000 adult people in Guyana would have to be vaccinated.