by Devonne Cornelius
St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Mr. Konris Maynard, former parliamentary representative for St. Christopher 3 (West Basseterre) is calling on Prime Minister the Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris to take full responsibility for the spread of the Lambda SARS-CoV-2 variant of the coronavirus disease throughout communities in St. Kitts and Nevis.
Mr. Maynard, the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party’s West Basseterre elected representative from 2015 to 2020, was at the time speaking on Freedom FM’s “Issues” talk show on July 5 when he made that call.
“If Harris can take credit for that wall around the city or the system developed to protect the community from Covid-19, the question is, who is then to take responsibility for when the system cracks? Credit must be Timothy Harris,” Mr. Maynard said adding that “the Government had near 18 months to prepare and they have failed miserably to deal with the community spread.
Some key members of the task force and the government had already declared that ‘there is no need for a lockdown because we have a vaccine. Now this is neither scientific nor does it make sense in the context of the lessons we’ve learnt around the world with Covid-19, ” he claimed.
St. Kitts and Nevis Covid-19 Situation Report No. 467 suggests that the confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the Federation stand at 517 with 499 identified on St. Kitts and 18 for the island of Nevis. There have been 318 recoveries with 196 remaining active and three reported fatalities.
“It takes but a few days for the virus to spread rapidly among people even with some level of practice of non-pharmaceutical measures, however, it takes weeks to months for a body to develop the immunities to a virus after receiving a vaccine. This is why you will never see anywhere in the world where there is rapid community spread, that the solution is to go and vaccinate where the spread is. The vaccine is not, for now, a vaccine is for later, therefore, you cannot use vaccines to solve an active spread. A vaccine is to aid in preventing a future problem,” he argued.
The vaccination programme in St. Kitts and Nevis commenced on February 22 and culminated on June 30, 2021. The latest vaccination report dated June 28, 2021, reported that there were 16,683 people who had received both the first and second dose of the vaccine. The total dose administered stood at 39,445 for the Federation with 30,386 for St. Kitts and 9,059 for Nevis.
Prime Minister the Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris announced on Friday, July 02, 2021, in a televised address to the nation, that the vaccination programme will recommence on Thursday, July 08, 2021, following the procurement of an additional 5,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Mr. Maynard, a one-term parliamentarian, went on to chastise the Minister of Health, the Hon. Akilah Byron-Nisbett, who he said is “hiding from the work” and “ has shown no leadership whatsoever”.
“When this nation needs to look for leadership on this health matter, there is nobody who is turning to the current Minister of Health. It has become a well-established fact that the minister is in hiding and trying at every turn not to accept any responsibility to what has been an even further deterioration of our health system,” the former Member of Parliament stated.
