By KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt
Trinidad & Tobago (Trinidad and Tobago Guardian): Although some citizens fear the COVID-19 vaccine is a ploy by global authorities to alter the human genome, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley says he will be first in line for the inoculation when the drug reaches Trinidad and Tobago. So confident is he in the science, Rowley said he will even recommend the vaccine to his family. During yesterday’s COVID-19 media conference at the Diplomatic Centre, Port-of-Spain, Rowley said science was the best basis to understand and respond to the virus while ignorance was not. As a five-year-old boy in Mason Hall, Tobago, Rowley said even then he trusted the science. He recalled his primary school years when he got vaccinated for smallpox and then as a government minister, ensuring he was immunised so he could travel to Europe. He said vaccinations were around a long time and were proven to work.
“I trust the rigours of the scientific input at the labs and the international agencies that are supervising the work, the ethical behaviour and the scientific numbers of those who put forward the outcome. So when WHO signs off on what is acceptable as a vaccine for the people of Trinidad & Tobago, I will be the first in line to have my vaccine,” Rowley said.
He told Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh that he could be second in line.
He added: “As long as it is signed off by WHO as the scientific product for this purpose, I have no hesitation in taking it myself or recommending it for my family. There is nothing that you can offer to the world that will get 100 per cent support from the human population and therefore, I will not be fazed by the comments about what vaccines we can and cannot get.”
Jokingly, he said he understood the vaccination programme is designed to breed new human beings who could be manipulated by their smartphones.
“I read too much of Dick Tracy when I was growing up to allow that.”
He said healthcare and elderly care providers would be in the first group for vaccination when it arrives here. However, he said the promised numbers are being reduced and he would not be surprised if the first batch sent to T&T is not the percentage contained in the Government’s agreement.
