COVID-19 Vaccines Reduce Hospitalisations, Infections

Chief Public Health Inspector for Westmoreland, Steve Morris, says take-up of the COVID-19 vaccine has shown efficacy in reducing hospitalisations and the rate of infections.

Speaking in an interview with JIS News, Mr. Morris said countries that have been vaccinating citizens have seen declines in the number of people being hospitalised due to the virus.

“So there are benefits as it relates to hospitalisations, and with our COVID numbers going up, we definitely need to see our hospitalisations going down,” he said.

He noted that countries are also seeing that cases of infections are going down.

“Yes, for a while, you will definitely have to ensure that we still continue to protect ourselves, wear our masks and so on, but once persons are vaccinated and we have the herd immunity, then we will definitely see persons possibly being able to go without masks,” he noted.

In the meanwhile, Mr. Morris is imploring citizens to do their own research about the vaccines before jumping to conclusions.

“There are a lot of myths going around about the vaccine. One of the first things that people are saying is that this vaccine was developed too quickly, but we have to understand that technology has [evolved] over the years. So when [vaccines] took 10 years to develop for some illnesses before, now, because of technology, we can do it much quicker,” Mr. Morris said.

“Stop following the myths and the conspiracy theories and go out and get vaccinated, look at the facts, go and read about it for yourself. The benefits far outweigh the perceived risks,” he noted further.

The Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA) has been conducting a series of vaccination sensitisation sessions for staff in the region.

On Monday (March 8), Jamaica received the first shipment of 50,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from India.

Administration of the vaccine to citizens will begin today, Wednesday (March 10).