Editorial | No let up on COVID-19 enforcement

As was noted in these columns on Saturday, the world may be beginning to see a light out of the bleakness of the COVID-19 pandemic – from its more than a million and a half deaths, the shutdowns and recession, and the widespread isolation and depression it has caused among people.

Last week, the United Kingdom’s Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority gave the go-ahead for the emergency use of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the drug company Pfizer, in conjunction with the firm BioNtech. Millions of doses of the drug are about to be shipped to Britain from a Pfizer plant in Belgium.

In short order, the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will follow suit with the Pfizer product. So, too, will regulators in the European Union. The FDA will also soon approve a vaccine by the drug company Moderna. Russia and China have begun administering their own vaccines to select members of their populations.

These developments notwithstanding, and our warning on Saturday, bears repeating: Jamaica has no room for complacency. We have to maintain, and redouble, our efforts at keeping coronavirus at bay, as if the developments we noted were not in our realm, even as the Government prepares for the eventuality of vaccinating Jamaicans against COVID-19.

For, while Jamaica is part of the World Health Organization’s COVAX consortium, to ensure equitable access to the new vaccines, it almost certainly won’t be in the shortlist of countries to get the early doses of the drugs. Developed countries, some of whose governments put billions of dollars into the research and development of some of the emerging vaccines, have first dibs on the medicines. Britain, the United States, and others pre-bought millions of doses. Developing countries, generally, will be in the second tier of recipients.

In any event, it is not clear whether Jamaica has the facility to handle the product that will be the first to hit the market – the Pfizer vaccine, whose stability, based on the technology of its development, requires that it is stored at temperatures of at least minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit), which, as is oft pointed out, is colder than the Antarctic winter. Moderna, however, says that its vaccine, based on the same mRNA technology, will be able to be kept at minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus four degrees Fahrenheit), which is in the capacity of normal cold storages and freezers.

Even if Jamaica could provide central storage at the lowest temperatures and the Pfizer product was immediately available to us, the obvious question is whether we could safely deliver the vaccine to where it will be needed across the island. In the event, whatever the technology for storage of the vaccine we eventually get, a mass vaccination exercise will be necessary. That will require planning and coordination. Which, we hope, has begun.

EDUCATING THE PUBLIC

This preparation must include a public education campaign to counter the wild claims about COVID-19 by assorted conspiracy theorists, the concerns of anti-vaxxers, and to establish the safety of the products and scientific logic of being vaccinated. That we have not heard as yet. Its start is urgent.

Concurrent with these efforts must be the aggressive reinforcement of the message that COVID-19 remains a dangerous and potentially deadly disease but that it can be kept relatively at bay with a reasonable exercise of discipline: wearing masks in public places, frequent washing of hands, avoiding crowds, and maintaining physical distance. At this time of the year, the approaching Christmas season, when families and friends are wont to gather for fellowship and celebration, avoiding crowds and keeping distance is not the norm.

The Government, however, has to do two things. It must rigorously enforce the COVID-19 protocols while constantly reminding the people that their lives, and those of their friends and loved ones, will depend on how each individual behaves in these times.