On Wednesday 22nd September, US President Joe Biden, under pressure from world organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations (UN), announced that the US will commit to purchasing a further 500 million doses of the Pfizer Biontech vaccine for donation to other countries as part of its effort to combat the spread of the pandemic. Biden noted that whilst his first responsibility was to protect the American people, combating the virus means beating it everywhere and not just in the United States. He also noted that the US had already shipped 160 million doses of the vaccine to other countries through the COVAX Facilty of which Saint Lucia is a member.
Saint Lucia on August 17, received 52,650 doses of the Pfizer vaccine as part of this first shipment by the United States and to date have administered 8,300 first doses and 646 second doses. Based on these numbers over 40,000 doses still remain unadministered as vaccine inoculation wanes because many people are reluctant to want to take the jab. Health officials have continued to attempt to persuade people who have not taken the vaccine to do so. Being that it is still a voluntary process many people continue to express doubt, at times unfounded and proliferated by conspiracy theories on social media, that the vaccine is not safe though health officials continue to make repeated efforts to debunk those claims and allay fears. In recent days health officials have published statistics from as far back as February 2021 which is when the vaccine was first introduced showing the effectiveness of the vaccine against the virus. This showed that only 2% of Covid positive patients treated or became seriously ill were vaccinated.
Meanwhile, in other OECS members states such as Antigua and St. Vincent, steps have been taken by these respective governments to make the vaccine mandatory or at least make it difficult to not have it. In Grenada, an effective “death panel” has been established who will determine who gets treated and who does not should the country’s capacity to treat Covid-19 patients is exceeded.
With many St. Lucians reluctant to take the Covid-19 vaccine albeit Pfizer or AstraZeneca, the only two options currently available on the island, will a donation to us form part of this second purchase by the United States? Will the Government of St. Lucia be forced to make vaccination mandatory if vaccination numbers continue to wane? This second batch of vaccines are set to begin distribution by January 2022.
