Editorial | Where is the COVID-19 vaccination mobilisation?

Wednesday’s confirmation that the Delta variant of COVID-19 is present in Jamaica underlines the need to accelerate the vaccination campaign, using messengers who Jamaicans will trust. The discovery of a cluster of cases, including at least one death, at the Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) call centre adds to the urgency of this mission. For HGS highlights the shifting demographic of COVID-19 in Jamaica.

In this regard, we wonder whether Prime Minister Andrew Holness has as yet, as this newspaper suggested, reached out to K.D. Knight, the opposition politician who last week announced the launch of an initiative intended to transcend politics in mobilising people to tackle the epidemic.

Mr Knight’s idea received our endorsement on two bases. He is right that given the low levels of trust Jamaicans have in politicians and political institutions, they are less likely to be very persuaded against vaccine hesitancy by people from this realm. In that regard, it was important for Prime Minister Holness to have realistic expectations of his planned roadshow, and tailor his programme taking account of that reality.

In other words, Mr Holness should not put too much store in his own star power, his party’s sweep of last September’s general election notwithstanding. Second, if nothing else, Mr Knight’s project offers a bridge across party lines. As a senior member of the People’s National Party (PNP), his call for a non-partisan, multi-stakeholder approach against the epidemic would help to blunt any effort by the Opposition, if it were so inclined, to gain partisan advantage from this crisis.

COMPELLING CASE

With Jamaica in its third wave of the COVID-19, the data makes a compelling case for a broad-based campaign to have Jamaicans behave responsibly, including being inoculated against the disease. During the first 17 days of August, up to Tuesday, 6,140 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed. That is an increase of 12 per cent since the end of July, bringing the total number of cases since one was confirmed in March 2020 to 59,377. The recent rate of growth is the fastest for any period since the onset of the pandemic, which, we suspect, can be blamed on the presence of the Delta variant.

But it is not only that more people are getting sick that is worrying. More people are also dying from COVID-19 – 143 in August, up to Tuesday, compared to 116 for the entirety of July and 131 in June. For a morbid comparison, Jamaicans are beginning to die from COVID-19 more than they are being killed by the island’s notorious gunmen, who, on average, are responsible for around 1,300 homicides annually.

Further, while the health ministry does not provide running aggregates of COVID-19 cases by age, the available numbers suggest that younger people are contracting, and dying from, the disease. Included in the latter group is the manager at HGS, who was in her early 30s. Indeed, in the seven days between August 11 and 17, inclusive of the 85 people who died from COVID-19, 15 were between 60 and 69 years old; 19 were between 51 and 59; and 20 were between 40 and 49. Another five were in their 30s. Put another way, over 69 per cent of the deaths were people younger than 70. COVID-19, clearly, is no longer just killing old people.

Part of the reason for this is that older Jamaicans are more likely to be vaccinated, having been, from the start, prioritised for the jab when vaccine supplies were limited. They are presumably, too, less hardened vaccine sceptics. They are also more likely than the young to obey COVID-19 protocols, such as wearing masks, sanitising frequently and maintaining recommended physical distance.

NATIONAL MOBILISATION

Jamaicans of all age groups, but more so the young, are part of the hesitancy to COVID-19 vaccines which threatens the island reaching the critical mass of inoculation which the Government says is required for herd immunity. Yet, that is what is necessary if the society is to return to a semblance of normality, including economic growth and job creation. A breakthrough, though, will require defeating the messages of assorted anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists, foreign and domestic, who deny the presence of the pandemic, or claim that the vaccines are harmful or otherwise aimed at controlling people.

This demands a massive national mobilisation of Jamaicans, including community leaders, artistes, entertainers, sportswomen and sportsmen, entrepreneurs and professionals, to explain the science behind the vaccines and the logic of why they should be taken. Government involvement, leadership even, will be necessary. But politicians cannot be the primary faces of this campaign.