(Trinidad Guardian) Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley is taking a hard line against unvaccinated adolescents as the new school term nears and has warned that the Government may make vaccines mandatory for a return to school.
“The Government will have no difficulty intervening on the children’s behalf, as we’ve done with measles, with mumps, with other aspects of health care, where the children cannot make the decision themselves,” Rowley said yesterday.
The Prime Minister was speaking at the handover ceremony of the San Juan Government Primary School. He said that by mid-September, if vaccinations numbers were still too low for herd immunity among the 12 to 18 age group, then the Government would act.
“If at the end of the period that we have set, which is mid-September, we look back on it and we see only a population of vaccinated students which is well below the herd immunity level of 60 or 70 per cent, then the Government will have to act,” he said.
“So far, we’ve left it up to the responsibility of parents to be reasonable, to be understanding, to be caring and to be responsible,” he added.
The Prime Minister said that this was not an easy decision.
“We will not do this lightly, but if we have to do that, we’d do it,” he said.
“So those who have a million and one reasons from Facebook to not get their children vaccinated, that is your right, but by the same token, other parents have rights for their children and the Government has a right and responsibility.”
He said a “large part” of the grouping, upwards of 60 per cent, needed to be vaccinated or immune to the virus to make it difficult for the virus to spread.
“We have vaccines, so therefore we are able to vaccinate a significant proportion of our children and bring them out to school and have a good scientific basis to say that if these vaccinated children are out to school for face-to-face learning, their exposure to the damage and danger and death which the virus promises is not great,” he said.
“It is on that basis that I am asking parents to do your children the favour of getting them vaccinated to be protected not only at home but in school and allow them to come back to school.”
