Prime Minister Gaston Browne has pushed back against criticisms that he is hindering the success of the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination program because of what many consider to be his overly aggressive advocacy.
The Prime Minister has been at the forefront of calls for more people to take the jab (in far greater quantities and rates than presently obtain) so that the country can achieve the desired “herd immunity” of at least 70,000 fully vaccinated adults.
It is also a race against time, with authorities wanting to achieve that target by the end of June 2021, beyond which the vaccine supplies currently on island (acquired with much difficulty after significant delays) would expire if they are not used by then.
But critics of Gaston Browne accuse him of being too in-your-face with demands for people to get vaccinated that sound unpleasantly like bullying and threatening.
They are of the view that it is a mistake for ordinarily polarizing politicians to be the ones out-front as the conspicuous lead voices and faces of a campaign for public support and buy-in to this urgent exercise which can be easily punctured by even mere reminders of our ever present and smouldering partisanship.
Browne, not surprisingly, disagrees. “I can’t see how myself and the Minister of Health, Minister Molwyn Joseph, could aggravate anyone. If anything, we should be commended for the type of commitment, the loyalty to the State, our love for the people, why we continue to speak to this issue and to encourage responsible action … There are others who are saying ‘let the doctors talk’. We are not preventing the doctors from talking. In fact we are encouraging them to come forward.”
He however claimed that, “There are many times when we ask several of them (the doctors) to join us on programs and they refuse to come. So it’s not a case that there is not a space for them to participate. It is an issue in which we do not have enough participants.”
Prime Minister Browne made these remarks on Saturday May 22, 2021 during his radio program, The Browne & Browne Show on Pointe FM.
