AS part of government’s aim to reduce the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus, persons wishing to gain access to all public buildings are now required to produce proof of being fully vaccinated against the deadly disease.
This was disclosed in the COVID-19 emergency measures no.24 of the Official Gazette.

This reflects one of the new changes in the new emergency measures for November 1, 2021 to November 31, 2021. In September 2021, as part of the COVID-19 Emergency Measures (No. 22), the government announced that Guyanese would be required to be vaccinated to access public buildings; this covered persons who were fully vaccinated or partially vaccinated, meaning they had just one dose of one of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The new guidelines for the use of public buildings, however, do not cater to persons vaccinated with just one dose of a vaccine; it now requires all to be fully vaccinated.

Paragraph 17(1) of the new gazette states that “… any person who wishes to enter a public building shall be fully vaccinated.”

According to the gazette, “public buildings” mean any building to which the public has lawful access and shall include both publicly and privately owned buildings, including all institutions of learning. These include stores, banks, and other commercial places.

For unvaccinated persons and those partially vaccinated who want to access these places, an appointment must be made and they must produce a negative result from a PCR COVID-19 test within seven days of the appointment.

Even with the government rolling out an aggressive COVID-19 vaccination programme that sees anyone above the age of 12 being inoculated, persons are still somewhat hesitant to be fully vaccinated against the deadly virus.

Currently, the government is offering first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 12 to 18, along with three vaccines targeting adults – the Russian-produced Sputnik V vaccine; Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine and the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine.

During a recent interview with the Department of Public Information, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, spoke about the reluctance of persons to get vaccinated with the second dose of the vaccines being rolled out by government.

Thus far 241,211 persons have been fully immunised, representing 47 per cent of the adult population.

“When you look at how much persons got their first dose and how much got their second dose, there is a difference of 139,000 people, so there is still a lot of people who need to come back and get their second dose vaccine,” Dr. Anthony said.

Minister Anthony said 55,000 people are yet to receive the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccines, which will expire November month-end.

“If they don’t come and by the end of November, if these vaccines then expire, then we don’t have any in stock, then we have to wait until we get another shipment or we purchase another shipment, and that will be a pity because we have the vaccines and if people don’t come and take it and they expire, then you know we will have to look at other options, and that’s very unfortunate because if you get the vaccine you want to make sure that people use it so that they can protect themselves.” Dr. Anthony said.