BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday 12th March 2021)- Individuals in St.Kitts-Nevis who can take the COVID-19 vaccine are being encouraged to do so and not have the mindset of reserving to be in the percentage of the population outside of the desired coverage of at least 70%.
 
“It’s not everyone who can take the vaccine and the ones who cannot take the vaccine, we need to have herd immunity to protect them and so sometimes I hear some healthy strong persons saying that oh they’re going to be part of 20 or 30 % who would not take the vaccine. It’s  not like that,  you have a responsibility  if you are fit and you are able and you can take the vaccine, you should take the vaccine  because there are some persons who genuinely because of  their age, if they suffer with allergies, they cannot take the vaccine  and those are the persons who we need to protect…”
 
Such were the sentiments of the Chief of Staff at the Joseph N. France General Hospital Dr. Cameron Wilkinson speaking at the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) COVID-19 Briefing held on Wednesday 10th March 2021.
 
Meanwhile, Chief Medical Dr. Hazel Laws has pointed out that the vaccination campaign was rolled out on Monday 22nd 2021 “and in just two-weeks 14 days because I think we’ve been vaccinating between then and now for about 14 days because we are also offering this vaccine on Saturday mornings at the Newtown Health Centre and so over the past two-week period, we would have vaccinated 5,176 persons….and so we would have reached 15.67% of the target population.”
 
She informed that there has been 3699 doses in St.Kitts and 1,477 administered in Nevis.
 
The CMO reiterated the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine offers a 63 to 83 risk reduction in contracting the virus.
 
She highlighted that the Federation has received 2,000 doses from Dominica and 20, 000 does from government of India while sharing details of more to be received.
 
“As a Federation we are expecting our allotment through the COVAX facility and that’s about 21, 600 doses. Please note that access to COVID-19 vaccines is very, very important because this is a sure way of curbing the spread of this disease.”
 
As it relates to the health situation for SKN, it was disclosed that an additional case of COVID-19 has been recorded bringing the total of 42 with St.Kitts 29 and Nevis 13.
 
“Please note that 24 days would have elapsse5 between our identifying case 41 and today case 42,” Dr. Laws shared.
 
According to her, 41 cases have fully recovered and there is one active case in isolation being monitored.
 
It was outlined then that 10, 418 persons have been tested.