Dear Editor,

WHILE many of the unvaccinated in the USA are being fired from their jobs, Minister Anthony has reported some good news that the vaccination rate in Guyana is inching up slowly as more and more resisters have seen the writing on the wall and are getting vaccinated. My friend Suresh in a chiding mood said, “Wha dem should do first, dem a do last.” I say better late than never!

The Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Narine Singh said, “Pregnant and breastfeeding women are among the groups of people who are no longer exempted from receiving the COVID-19 vaccines.” As of October 6, a total of 365,274 adults have received a COVID-19 vaccine, representing 71.2 per cent of the adult population whereas 218,120 or 42.5 per cent are fully inoculated. I trust the government would release data on the number of people vaccinated and unvaccinated in the various state agencies, including teachers and nurses. Vaccination of only 50 per cent of prisoners is not good.

One grave concern is the minister said the current batch of Pfizer vaccines are slated to expire in November and December. We have spent billions of dollars on vaccines so I hope the government has an aggressive plan to deploy all these vaccines so our money is not wasted. The unvaccinated must step up in larger numbers to make good use of our stock of vaccines, especially with 100,000 more doses of Pfizer received on Friday.

A bit of good news is that Pfizer and BioNTech have asked federal regulators in the USA to authorise emergency use of their coronavirus vaccine for children ages five to 11. This is good news because it would help us to keep all children safe as we seek to open up all schools to deal with learning loss and accelerate learning for all.

Meanwhile, here are some recent headlines in the USA. “Kaiser Permanente suspends 2,200 of its employees nationwide over vaccine mandate” – employees who have refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19 were put on unpaid administrative leave. Kaiser said the number of unvaccinated workers is declining each day. Employees have until December 1, 2022 to get vaccinated to be able to return to work or risk losing their jobs.

“NY’s largest healthcare provider fires 1,400 who refused to get COVID vaccine” -Northwell Health announced it was parting ways with staff who did not comply with the state’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. “Northwell believes that having a fully-vaccinated workforce is an important measure in our duty to protect the health and safety of our staff, our patients and the communities we serve,” the rep said. “Northwell regrets losing any employee under such circumstances, but as healthcare professionals and members of the largest healthcare provider in the state, we understand our unique responsibility to protect the health of our patients and each other. We owe it to our staff, our patients and the communities we serve to be 100 per cent vaccinated against COVID-19.”

And in New York City where 97 per cent of teachers are now vaccinated, the headline – “My heart is breaking: NYC teachers who refuse vaccination prepare for possibility of being removed.” Scientists are increasingly concerned vaccinated people may be more susceptible to serious illness than was previously thought.

One more headline, “Unvaxxed Colorado woman speaks out after hospital denies lifesaving transplant: ‘My days are numbered’.” In September, the Colorado health system denied the kidney transplant because she won’t be vaccinated against COVID due to her religious views.

So nation, let’s make a big push to use up all the vaccines and reach herd immunity that would let us open up the country fully.

Yours sincerely,
Dr. Jerry Jailall