Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said the country is now prepared to take its response to the COVID-19 virus to the next level, as the focus is shifting from managing the virus to controlling the virus.
“We have been dealing with the disease for a year by closing borders, physical barriers such as masking, social detachment, washing hands, asking people to stay at home if they are sick and all other public health measures.
Speaking at the Ministry of Health’s virtual press conference COVID-19 on Wednesday, Deyalsingh said other management tools used were limiting the congregation, closing rivers and streams and, at one point, closing most companies.
“This is how you manage the disease in a pandemic, but managing the disease is different from what we want to do now. Now we want to make the transition from managing the disease – which is like a battle of attrition, today the virus wins, tomorrow I win – to control the disease. When we talk about disease control, we mean now that we have some domain over the COVID-19 virus. “
He said what it means figuratively speaking, is that they can tell the virus what to do and where to go.
“How do we do that? You can’t do that with public health, with the closure of borders, that’s management. To control it now, we have to move on to the next phase that talks about vaccinating people. That’s how we could control this virus. And if we can control the virus with a robust vaccination program, which we are implementing, then life as we know it or as we knew it before February 2020 could return to some degree of normality.
“This is what we want. So that grandchildren can hug their grandparents, so that you can have a wedding, so that you can have a birthday party. The social interaction that we have been wanting and that we have lost in the last 10 months, we can start having some of that again, ”said Deyalsingh.
He noted that they can look favorably on the reopening of the last parts of the business community with regard to nightlife, but to do so they would have to ensure that a number of people are vaccinated in order to control the virus.
“What we are going to start doing from February, March and going forward is vaccination to control the virus so that life returns to a certain degree of normality. You may still have to wear masks, you would still have to distance yourself socially, wash your hands, but what I would like to see come out of this … no more deaths. No more hospitalizations, no more people in intensive care units. We would like to see more and more children going to school. So, these are the victories that we would like to have.
The Minister of Health said that, according to the schedule provided by the World Health Organization, Trinidad and Tobago expects to receive its initial vaccine quota in late February or early March.
“We have already made all the preparations to start the vaccination campaign. Once the vaccines are physically in Trinidad and Tobago, we expect the launch to begin within three to five business days after receiving the vaccines.
He said the 3-5 days will allow them to store the vaccines and do all the necessary paperwork before sending them to the Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) and Tobago, in order to have a coordinated national response in the first instance where start to vaccinate frontline health workers.
“We are dedicating the first week of the program only to frontline health professionals, who have the greatest risk of exposure, such as those in COVID hospitals, those in accident and emergency wards and district health units.
“They are doing it because they are our most loved and highly exposed population, which concerns us.”
Affirming that RHAs are responsible for vaccinating their frontline health workers in the first instance, Deyalsingh said the ministry has already asked RHAs to provide the names of these workers, who will then be scheduled to receive the vaccine.
“After that, we started distribution to non-communicable disease clinics, essential workers and so on.”