Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves is urging Vincentians to take the Covid-19 vaccine but he is frowning on reluctance of some even as he indicates a right to decide.
“Is either we’re going to believe in superstition, or we’re going to believe in the science.
“Everybody knows, or, in my view, every reasonable person knows that if you didn’t have vaccines people’s life span would have been much shorter. This is another vaccine. And, it’s a vaccine for a virus which is not an automatic death sentence.
“It’s a killer, to be sure, but we see the persons who have died here in St Vincent and the Grenadines are those with severe comorbidities (simultaneous presence of two or more diseases or medical conditions in a patient), severe ones.
‘So, I’m talking purely as a practical person talking to the ordinary man and woman in St Vincent and the Grenadines, people of reasonable temper.” Prime Minister Gonsalves said at a virtual press conference hosted by the Ministry of Health last Thursday.
The Prime Minister said there are persons who feel very strong about the vaccine and so do not want to take it.
“What I’m urging our people to do is not to bother with them. If they don’t want to take it, nobody is going to force them, nobody forcing anybody to take the vaccine. It’s a voluntary programme. But, on the basis of the science which is available, it is wise, it is sensible to take the vaccine; both in relation to what is reported in the science … I will have to believe that all the scientists in the world, at least the mainstream scientists, are manipulated by some evil set of figures and some conspiracy.
“I don’t believe that and I don’t think reasonable people would believe that, or think so,” Prime Minister Gonsalves said.
Prior to reports last week that he had taken the vaccine, Prime Minister Gonsalves had said that he would have to have “prayerful consideration” before taking the Covid-19 vaccine.
“And I want to say, I value my life. I am 74, I’ll be 75 this year. I want to live more years, although that I have lived more years than I have remaining to live,” Dr Gonsalves said.