SAINT JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) – Prime Minister Gaston Browne has warned of the possibility of implementing a mandatory vaccination programme in Antigua and Barbuda as he criticised persons who were encouraging others not to participate in the national vaccination programme aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19.
“This is not a threat,” Browne said on his weekend radio programme, saying that the pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the socio-economic development of the country since the first case was diagnosed here last March.
“We are struggling on a monthly basis to meet salaries and wages and you are telling me that Antigua and Barbuda as one of the hardest-hit countries, one of the most vulnerable, you are telling me we have the luxury of not getting vaccinated.
“Well I want to say definitively to the people of Antigua and Barbuda that we do not have the luxury of not getting vaccinated and if we do not get the herd immunity perhaps in the next 60 to 90 days there is going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth in this country,” Browne said, adding “that is the reality of it”.
“So people need to take responsibility and go out there and get vaccinated. You got to do it for yourself, for your children, your friends, the entire community and also for future generations because as I said the economic and social scars they are getting deeper and deeper day by day.
“This type of hesitancy and reluctance to get vaccinated is just totally unacceptable. I mean we have been trying to avoid introducing any mandatory requirements for vaccinations, but I want to signal here, if we have to do it we will do so.
“It is going to be an inescapable fact that our people have no choice but to get vaccinated, they either do so voluntarily to protect lives and livelihoods or be forced to do so,” Browne told radio listeners.
He told radio listeners that refusals to get vaccinated are delaying herd immunity, insisting “we are putting an entire population at risk”.
“We have the weapon to deal with COVID and if these individuals refuse to avail themselves of the vaccines and allow a third wave to come and wipe out even more people than you have, hospitalisations, and we can’t even recover the economy…then we have to blame these irresponsible persons.”
Antigua and Barbuda has set a target of 70 per cent of its population to be vaccinated in order to get herd immunity and Browne said during the vaccination exercise last week, just over 100 people took advantage of the programme.
Antigua and Barbuda has recorded 1, 232 cases of the virus with 32 deaths since last March. There have been 1,014 recoveries.
