Jamaica has gone into a three weekend lockdown according to reports out of the island as they attempt to roll back the spike in COVID-19 cases.
The country has recorded 533 deaths and more than 35,300 cases – with 18,426 infections classified as active. Nine new deaths were tallied on Saturday.
All of this was a few days after this magazine published a lovely opinion editorial from their minister for health and his proclaiming that the Caribbean is COVID-resilient. What a kick in the teeth is that?
But, if they have to lock down, they have to lock down. Larger countries have had to. It seems the only way to go until there is this infamous “herd immunity” people keep talking about.
But as we talk about herd immunity, the AstraZeneca vaccine, the only one the media keeps talking about, seems to be weathering another assault. Apparently the company used outdated data to pass off to US Federal regulators as a way to get a quicker approval for the vaccine’s roll out in America. (Why am I not surprised?)
Considering that AstraZeneca has been doing business for quite some time, surely they have ways to manipulate certain mechanisms and personell to get their drugs to “fit.” However, does this make the vaccine any less safe? Maybe it is a storm in a teacup, because the company admitted to using outdated date to the US regulators and the media blew it up out of proportion like it was something the company was doing that was untoward. (See why people prefer to lie?)
Also, considering that they have sluffed off the AstaZeneca vaccine to third world countries like in the Caribbean and Central America, makes it even all the more suspicious.
Some countries have taken surveys on who should take the vaccine and the returns are coming back with over one third saying they don’t trust the vaccine. That is a lot.
I prefer to wait and see for good now. I felt good about it before the news on the outdated sample sizes hit the media, but now it is looking too dodgy again. Something is wrong! Just my humble rathers!