September 20, 2021

Delta Concern: Health Minister Worried About Community Spread As Roughly 60% Of Population Still Unvaccinated

By Newsroom

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh has expressed concern that current vaccination levels do not put Trinidad and Tobago in “a good position” to combat the highly contagious Delta variant .

His worry is compounded by the fact that three new cases of the strain were detected on Sunday, two of which could not be linked to recent travel into the country.

“It is not too late for persons to make that decision to get vaccinated,” Deyalsingh urged at Monday’s media conference.

Health officials are now expecting more cases of the variant to present in the near future, as Chief Medical Officer Dr. Roshan Parasram revealed on Monday that the strain has been in the national community for “a few weeks now”.

According to Minister Deyalsingh, vaccinations should be about 4,000 to 5000 shots per day, but this target was being missed week by week.

As an incentive, the Ministry of Health has made another 50,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine available to adults, as the Health Minister lamented vaccination of people ages 12-18 had also slowed down in recent weeks.

Latest statistics from the Health Ministry show that 558,811  people have vaccinated with one shot to date, while 464,129 are fully inoculated.

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