40,000 Students Have Received First Dose Of Pfizer Vaccine

More than 40,000 students have, so far, received their first dose of the Pfizer coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine.

This was disclosed by Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Hon. Fayval Williams, who said that the vaccine take-up by students is “going very well”.

Speaking with JIS News during a recent interview, Ms. Williams said she is optimistic that “we are going to get way more students vaccinated”, as more school plants are added as vaccination sites.

“We will be using our school nurses [to assist with the vaccination process] and we have almost 200 school nurses, so we are right now just planning the rollout of that,” she informed.

Ms. Williams said that the Ministry is targeting a vaccination rate of at least 65 per cent to facilitate a resumption of face-to-face classes.

“We have a responsibility… to bring our students back to the face-to-face environment as safely as we can and, at this point in the pandemic, having our students vaccinated is the safest way. I am particularly talking about our secondary-school students because, as you know, our primary-school students, who are below the age of 12, there is no vaccination available for them [as] yet,” she noted.

She said that for those students who are not vaccinated, the Ministry will still continue to offer all remote-learning modalities – online or computer-aided, printed learning kits, and audio/visual [platforms] “so nobody will be denied [an] education”.

Ms. Williams again urged school administrators, teachers and all other personnel who work in the school environment, especially in primary schools, to get vaccinated.

“When we are able to come back to the face-to-face environment for primary schools, you as an adult, are going to be interacting with children under 12 who are not vaccinated, so please, we are asking you to really protect yourself, given that you’ll be working in that environment,” she pleaded.

The Ministry of Education launched its vaccination drive for students 12 and over in August.