As of Tuesday 9th November, sixty-one percent of St Vincent and the Grenadines police force was at least partially vaccinated. On Monday 8th, it was 58 percent, thus in one day, there has been an uptick.
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves speaking on NBC radio said the very day that persons we’re talking about ‘sick out’, was the same day more officers were being vaccinated.
“As you know, some areas naturally have higher numbers than in other areas. In the Grenadines, there are 24 who are fully vaccinated, ten partially vaccinated, that’s 34 and 17 not vaccinated. So you see the police in the Grenadines are doing fairly well”.
Gonsalves says this means that you now have over 700 policemen and women who are either fully or partially vaccinated.
“Included in this number, when I talk about the police, I also talk about the Coast Guard and the fire department”.
The vaccine uptake in St Vincent and the Grenadines has been slow, however as of Wednesday 10 November, there were one thousand one hundred and twenty-six (1126) active cases, and sixty-nine (69) persons with COVID-19 have died.
The government have set a deadline, Friday 19 November for all frontline workers to be vaccinated or lose their jobs.
The frontline workers who are expected to be fully vaccinated include:
- All health care workers.
- Police officers.
- Prison and customs officers.
- Teachers.
- Permanent Secretaries.
- All heads of departments and Chief Technical officers.
There have been several protests in St Vincent over vaccine mandates, including one on August 5, which left Prime Minister Gonsalves with a head wound, from which he has recovered.
St Vincent and the Grenadines Teachers Union boss Oswald Robinson in a message to teachers on Tuesday, October 25, described COVID-19 and the vaccine mandate as a “Staged Crisis” and urged the educators to stand their ground.
Gonsalves said in the police force, the number of persons in the police force has doubled since his party came to office.
“The population hasn’t gone up more than about 2000, that is the total population in the country; however, there are more sophisticated criminals.
“We need to increase numbers, and we have to increase technology, improve the communications network and transportation and all the rest of it, detection and preparation for courts”, Gonsalves said.
In the general service, PM Gonsalves said workers would take PCR tests every two weeks.