There has been a marked increase in the pace of vaccination during the past week, both among persons receiving their first dose and those taking their second jab of the double-dose inoculation.
It’s a development highly pleasing to arguably the nation’s most vociferous vaccination campaigner, Prime Minister Gaston Browne.
Speaking Saturday during his weekly radio program, The Browne and Browne Show on Pointe FM radio, he noted that more than 36,000 people have so far taken the first dose and 13,000 have completed the inoculation cycle by receiving the second and final injection.
“At the current rate of over 1,000 per day for first time vaccinations, we should cover the remaining 4,000 who should have the first vaccination by the end of June when the vaccines expire. In fact, to be precise, they expire between the 27th and the 30th of June,” he stated.
Browne’s reference to “the remaining 4,000” pertains to the supply of vaccines that were procured to completely inoculate 40,000 people with the required two doses of vaccine each in the first instance. Additional vaccine supplies have been ordered or promised to make up the quantity needed to inoculate 70,000 to 80,000 people in order to achieve the desired herd immunity.
“Now it is equally important that the remaining 15,000 persons who are required to take their second dose that they do so before the vaccines expire at the end of June, because there is no guarantee that we will have more vaccines immediately,” the PM warned.
He however expressed confidence that additional supplies expected would arrive in time to prevent such shortages.
“We are very pleased that there has been such a significant uptick in the vaccination process for first-time persons … At one point when we were seeing 20 individuals per center per day, that was very worrisome for us. I believe in one week we would have seen a few hundred, but we would have done in excess of 1,000 last week. So, if we continue at that rate, by the end of June we should not be faced with any significant amount of vaccines, if any at all … expiring on us. So that is extremely good news.”
