Well, someone feels our respective governments are doing a fantastic job on vaccination plans in the Caribbean. The lovely, Chelsea Clinton, daughter of the former president of the US, Bill Clinton.
I know, you must be wondering what in the world is Ms Clinton smoking, right? Must be some of that weed that Antigua just legialised this week. Considering that most of the countries still have under a 30 percent vaccination rate for COVID-19 topped with many of the healthcare workers deciding not to vaccinate, we only could laugh.
Ms Clinton was being “nice” I guess. Diplomatic. Also, she was speaking about childhood vaccinations. But it’s the same glib and empty response most US diplomats give to Caribbean leaders to make them feel good about themselves, and often times out of season. Well, I don’t think it worked on us at Caribbean Magazine Plus because we know and see better on COVID-19 vaccinations at least.
Trinidad and Tobago is still under lockdown. No one in and no one out, in addition to a strict curfew. The Bahamas is still under curfew and cases have slowed down tremendously, but for how long? The vaccination rate in The Bahamas is 18 percent. Barbados, Jamaica, the British Virgin Islands, St Kitts and Antigua along with Dominica and St Vincent, all have their problems.
The main thing about us is, and you can blame a bit of this on pop culture media, is that we don’t trust the vaccines. We don’t think they are safe, particularly the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine which is said to cause blood clots in women. Now we are hearing that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines cause inflammation of the heart in men between 25 to 49. We neither want blood clots or inflammation of the heart, particularly for a vaccine that will not guarantee 100 percent effectiveness from catching the COVID-19.
When faced with these options many people have decided to just wing it, catch the virus in hopes of getting a natural immunity. Influenza causes death too and people still risk it.
With all of that said, the media and the medical profession need to get on one page. I don’t say lie to us, but stop scaring us. It ain’t helpin’.