With over 1,000 receiving vaccines during last Saturday’s vaccination drive-thru event at the National Stadium, another has already been planned for tomorrow.
This disclosure was made by Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony yesterday during his daily COVID-19 update, where he stated that there was a good response to the vaccination drive. “We had a steady flow of cars coming in and we were able to do 931 first doses and 140 second doses,” he said, while adding that it was one of the sites where the ministry has had the highest yield of persons coming to be inoculated.
This, he said, could be attributed to how comfortable the process is as persons don’t have to get out of their vehicles even as the staff that were conducting the exercise were proactive and ensured that persons were comfortable and well informed.
With that, Anthony added that the team was also able to accommodate persons who wanted to walk in and receive their jab. Given the turnout, he added that an analysis was done by the technical staff of the ministry and they decided to go ahead with another event. “On Wednesday, Indepen-dence Day, we are going to have another session at the stadium starting from 9 am in the morning and we will go until 5 pm,” he said.
The bulk of persons who came out to be vaccinated, he said, were from Region Three and Region Four. When asked about the possibility of having a similar exercise in other regions, Anthony noted that some of the Regional Health Officers have been contemplating going the same route.
“I think Region Six this week is going to set up a drive-thru this week by the Berbice River Bridge, so people can go there and get their vaccine, so they’re still putting the pieces together,” he added.
Meanwhile, according to Anthony as of Sunday a total of 184,319 have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, which would account for 37.9 percent of the adult population even as some 54,691 persons have received their second dose and are now considered fully inoculated.
As it relates to the regions and the uptake in vaccines, he mentioned that Region Ten continues to lag behind in the vaccination programme. However, he said some increase has been seen as 11.3 percent of the region’s adult population is now inoculated.
Additionally, Anthony revealed that for ages 60 and above some 67.2 percent of the demographic has received shots and this percentage he attributed to the earlier stage of the vaccine outreach which had targeted that age group. Additionally, some 34.9 percent of persons in the 40 to 59 age group have been inoculated while only 28.9 percent of those persons in the 18 to 39 age range have received shots.
