The health team, administering the COVID-19 vaccine, has come in for high commendation from the Anguilla United Front’s Leader of the Opposition, Mrs. Cora Richardson-Hodge, and her colleague, Mr. Jose Vanterpool.
They were at the time speaking while delivering the AUF’s Radio Anguilla programme, Just The Facts, on Monday, February 15. Both of them were among the first Anguillians to take the COVID-jab on February 5, the date the vaccine was released at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.
“The health team did an excellent job,” Mrs. Richardson-Hodge observed. “They were quite professional. They went about making sure you felt comfortable. I was treated by Nurse Williams, a tall gentleman, who smiled and made me feel very comfortable – so I want thank them for the hard work they are doing.”
Mr. Vanterpool commented: “I cannot stand injections, but I have to give a big shout out to the health team. I have big commendations specifically to Nurse Linda [Harrigan] who gave me my vaccination. It was in and out before I knew it. The only issue I had that day was that, when I finished taking the vaccine, I asked Nurse Linda where is my lollipop? I thought after taking injections you get lollipops.”
Like many other persons, the two Opposition parliamentarians reported only experiencing mild reactions to the vaccine. Mrs. Richardson-Hodge noted that every person’s body was different, alluding to reports that there were varied mild reactions to the vaccine.
She continued: “I would encourage persons, especially if they have pre-existing conditions, to touch base with their doctor first before taking the vaccine – so that the experiences that they have are not related to something more severe, but are in relation to the body reacting to the vaccine. I think as persons become vaccinated, other persons are interested in signing up. I know about a number of elderly persons who have signed up as well. Some can’t wait. Some of them had the vaccine already. What it means is that we are beginning to overcome our initial hesitancy, and that is the case with anything new. We have a limited supply of the vaccine and we know that once we are able to become vaccinated, it improves our chances in terms of [not getting] COVID. I read an article saving that COVID is not going away anytime soon. We know it is ‘the new normal’, and so we have to figure out how to best live in a COVID-19 world.”
Mr. Vanterpool joined in: “I guess it shows us that as persons have seen the vaccinations go on, that they are now willing to get on board. When we got our vaccines there were less than 100 persons who got vaccinated that day. I think…at that point in time there were just under 2,000 registrations – but I recently saw a communication from the Ministry of Health that says over 4,000 persons had registered, which is great. We need to keep this kind of momentum going.”
The two AUF Opposition members were pleased with the growing number of persons signing up to take the AstraZeneca vaccine. They expressed concern about breaches of the COVID-19 regulations – by a number of persons – as reported by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Mr. Foster Rogers. They advised against such breaches which could lead to community spread of the virus, thus making all the hard work and successes null and void.
