With one elderly and well-known man from Long Bay having died at 91, from COVID-19, on Tuesday, September 21 – and another person hospitalised and 16 cases of the virus announced on Wednesday, September 22 – Premier Dr. Ellis Lorenzo Webster, continues to urge the people of Anguilla to get vaccinated.
Dr. Webster, who is also the Minister of Health and Finance, was at the time speaking in a Radio Anguilla interview hosted by Mr. Keith (Stone) Greaves.
He reported that only 58 percent of Anguilla’s some 15,000 population had so far been fully vaccinated. He thought that it was unfortunate that, because of the reluctance of persons to take the vaccinations, that 2,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine had to be shipped to The Bahamas – and that over 1,500 doses, which expired, had to be disposed of in Anguilla.
In continuing to urge the adult population to take the first and second doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the Premier and Minister of Health stated: “We are working with the UK Government, who gave us the AstraZeneca vaccine before, to provide now the Pfizer vaccine so that we can vaccinate our children. They are prepared to do this but what they want are hard numbers – like how many children do you expect will want to be vaccinated. And so, there is a website – Beat Covid-19 .ai – and that gives you the link to register the children.”
He added: “Those who were pregnant at the time, when AstraZeneca was here, we are willing to vaccinate them so we also need numbers on them. And we need numbers of persons who did not want to take AstraZeneca for whatever reason, but would take a different vaccine (Pfzer). They also can register at Beat COVID .ai. When we compile that number, then we can ask the UK Government specifically – and they will send us more vaccine.”
Premier Webster took the opportunity to extend his condolences to the family of the elderly man who died from the COVID-19 virus.
