PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh Wednesday “apologized” to the Trinidad and Tobago population as thousands of people cramped health clinics across the island seeking to get vaccinated under an open vaccination program.
people line up for vaccines under the “walk in” program of the ministry of Health (Photo courtesy Trinidad Express)Television and social media showed long lines of people waiting to get vaccinated even though the Ministry of Health had said that its first no-appointment system for COVID-19 inoculation, would cater for two vulnerable groups, those over 60 years and those under that age with co-morbidities.
The ministry is providing the Chinese made Sinopharm vaccine.to those people as “walk-ins” to 36 district health centers for their first dose, while it continues its appointment system for those receiving the second dose of the Astra Zeneca vaccine.
“Apart from the apology we must learn some lessons and immediately this morning we are going to institute the following measure to mitigate against this re-occurring from tomorrow,” Deyalsingh said, adding that “we will start an alphabetical system using surnames in groups of five”.
“So, from tomorrow…we will only be handling persons over 60 with surnames starting from A to E. They will get into our health centers . On Friday we will do F to J and then we will communicate with the public so on and so on.
“So, we will be having a rolling alphabetical listing in groups of five letters…to mitigate what happened today,” the Health Minister said, thanking the population for “their overwhelming response to the vaccination drive.
“It does speak to a high level of vaccine acceptance. My apology is unreserved and I have spoken to all the chief executive officers within the past half hour and most, if not all of the crowds have already been handled and dispersed”.
Deyalsingh also disclosed that as of Tuesday, 134, 289 persons have received their first doses of vaccines over a two-month period, while 4, 228 people have received their second dose over the last three days.
Trinidad and Tobago, registered 10 deaths over the last 24 hours bringing the death toll to 599 while 280 positive cases brought the total number to 27, 079 since the first case was detected in March last year. The country has 9, 833 active cases with 16, 647 persons having recovered from the virus.
