The Chief Education Officer Dr. Marcel Hutson on Friday announced that the programme to inoculate children ages 5 to 11 against COVID-19 will commence this Friday.
Dr. Hutson on Friday sent out a memorandum to Regional Education Officers across the country, informing them of the vaccination programme. The memorandum states, “with the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to the 5 to 11 years age category, the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the Ministry of Education will begin the rollout of the scheduled vaccination programme for this age cohort from Friday, November 19, 2021.”
The memorandum further adds that a schedule will be published and circulated to indicate which schools will be used as vaccination sites. Additionally, Grade Seven students can return to their respective primary schools to receive their vaccine. It reminded that students will have to be aware of which schools are sites to avoid clustering at various schools. Parents can also have their children vaccinated at any of the permanent sites established in their region.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand, during the recent announcement of the top performers for the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) examinations, said that some 84,000 primary and 27,000 nursery school children will be eligible to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
Dr. Hutson said that the return to face-to-face teaching and learning is dependent on the rollout of the vaccination programme. He added that the schools’ PTAs, School Boards, Old Students’ Associations, Departments of Education and the community have to educate parents on the importance of having their children vaccinated.
Manickchand has been encouraging parents and teachers to get vaccinated. She said that it would be in the best interest of all, if children, teachers and parents are vaccinated as this will allow the country to return to some form of normalcy. Further, Manickchand said that messages will be sent out to parents to inform them of where the children can get their shot and assured that students will not be turned away from school if they are unvaccinated.
Previously, the vaccine was only being used for the inoculation of children 12 years and over as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women. But the vaccine was made available to all members of the public at the start of November.
