EDITORIAL: Good start, but improvements needed
Health authorities in Barbados have been hard at work over the last few weeks seeking to carry out mass immunisation against COVID-19 and they are to be highly commended.
When the 100,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, commonly called Covishield arrived on the island on Tuesday, February 9, Barbadians were told that a massive vaccine campaign was going to be rolled out no later than that weekend, and persons were urged to start having the necessary discussions with family and friends about being vaccinated, especially given the high incidence of non-communicable diseases in this country. With most if not all of the persons who have succumbed to COVID-19 in Barbados having comorbidities like diabetes and hypertension, Barbadians were encouraged to get vaccinated as the vaccine would minimise not only the risk of death, but of serious hospitalisation should a person contract the virus.
So it seemed that the despite the initial scepticism about the vaccine, given how fast it was created, once the vaccines were actually on island the demand was high, such that by February 20 it was reported that in excess of 14,000 persons had received their first dose of Covishield and the authorities felt confident that the country was on track to have a sizeable percentage of the population protected against the virus.
The public heard that the response to the vaccine call was overwhelming, and the focus was on inoculating the most vulnerable in the society first, including frontline workers. This was in keeping with the public appeals we saw coming from the Government Information Service urging persons 70 years and over to register to be vaccinated, and subsequently the call for persons 18 to 69 years with chronic illnesses to follow suit.
Many persons registered, but not hearing from those coordinating the vaccine programme in what they considered to be a timely manner, decided to venture to one of the polyclinics or vaccination sites and try their luck. This resulted in long lines at these facilities and many persons were complaining then that some of those with appointments, were being overlooked in favour of persons who just walked in and asked to be vaccinated.
The major problem for persons registering to be vaccinated is that there has been a lack of communication from the Government’s end. Persons have sent their information either via WhatsApp or email to the designated telephone numbers or email addresses, but they have not received confirmation that the information has been received and logged and there is no way of them checking to see where they are in the process. One would have thought that with the thrust made by this Administration to digitise many of the government processes, this would have been a perfect opportunity for them to showcase how technology can work for us.
How hard would it have been for a person who registered to be provided with a registration number, which they could use to log on, via a website or App, and see where they are in the process? If persons were able to log on and see whether they have been approved to receive the vaccination or not, and when they would likely get an appointment, then there may not have been as much angst as we saw prior to the stay-at-home weekend when persons, without appointments, were flocking to the various vaccination centres.
We are a people who are accustomed now to having information readily available at our fingertips, but it can be argued that the authorities dropped the ball in this regard. Now while the system has been heavily criticised on the various call-in programmes, the traditional media and on social media, all in all, it can still be considered a success, as based on the figures released yesterday, 22,037 persons have been vaccinated thus far.
This is commendable, but given that many persons without appointments were vaccinated, can we truly say that we have captured the vulnerable segments of the population that were being targeted? In that vein, we respectfully submit that as the remainder of the current batch of vaccines are administered and more come, we find a better way of keeping the lines of communication open between the health authorities and the people who are anxious to be vaccinated, so that persons are not wondering even if their information has been received.