Cuthbert-Flynn calls on youth to get jabs as country opens up
Published:Saturday | April 23, 2022 | 12:09 AMJudana Murphy/Gleaner Writer
Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, state minister in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, is hopeful that vaccination take-up across Jamaica will increase in the coming weeks, following the confirmation of another COVID-19 variant in the island this week.
“I think a lot of people think that COVID-19 is gone. We’ve been seeing that in the last few weeks, the cases have dropped, but when you add up 40 or 30 cases a day, that adds up to quite a number of people still infected with COVID-19,” she said.
The state minister said Jamaica continues to record deaths among the elderly, a group that is vulnerable to the virus due to age and comorbidities.
On Thursday, the health ministry reported that the highly transmissible Omicron BA.2 variant was detected in Jamaica after samples collected between January 1 to March 4 were submitted for gene sequencing.
“I would like to urge the younger people to get vaccinated. The country has opened up, there are more parties, and there is more mingling going on. I am heartened to see the young people here this morning – a couple of them, 13 and 24 years old – getting vaccinated,” Cuthbert-Flynn said yesterday at an event at the Stony Hill HEART Academy in St Andrew.
The state minister said the messaging has been clear and from the outset, the elderly have always been targeted for vaccination.
Cuthbert-Flynn, who is also the member of parliament for St Andrew West Rural, told The Gleaner that she has heard young constituents discouraging older relatives from taking the vaccine.
“I don’t want to see another surge where we are having 600 people in the hospital. Yesterday, I visited Lionel Town and there were only three patients in the isolation ward and a few who were possible positives. We don’t want to go back to where we’re coming from,” she said.
Without giving specific numbers, Cuthbert-Flynn said there were sufficient vaccines available.
She said that although the ministry has had to dump expired vaccines, Jamaica continues to receive donations from various countries and orders from prior purchases are being fulfilled.
France recently donated 620,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines to Jamaica.
French Ambassador Olivier Guyonvarch said the donation was an act of solidarity.
“We are happy to see that young people are also getting vaccinated, not only older people, because vaccination doesn’t protect you alone; it helps to protect the vulnerable around you,” Guyonvarch said.
According to the ministry’s vaccination tracker, more than 1.4 million doses have been administered. Of that number, 692,177 were first doses, 587,415 were second doses and 95,551 were single doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Some 3,843 were administered to immunocompromised Jamaicans, while another 31,978 were booster shots.