Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony today condemned vaccinated politicians who are supporting and encouraging persons not to get immunised against the life-threatening novel coronavirus.
During today’s Covid update, the Health Minister explained that officials have been visiting various communities where there are high levels of vaccine hesitancy to understand the main reasons persons are not taking the jabs.
Apart from religious leaders playing a significant role in discouraging persons from getting vaccinated, Dr Anthony said some political leaders are also part of the problem.
“We also have some political persons who are creating mischief, sewing confusion amongst people who are hesitant and that’s very unfortunate because many of these political activists who are sewing that type of confusion, many of them are already vaccinated,” he posited.
“So, they have taken the vaccine, however, now they are encouraging people not to take the vaccine. That’s a very irresponsible thing to do because you’re now putting other people at risk by the way you’re talking about the vaccine, creating confusion, creating hesitancy and that’s very irresponsible,” Dr Anthony contended.
He is encouraging persons to realise this duplicity and think for themselves regarding the Covid vaccines. The Health Minister indicated that this issue is beyond politics and that it is about saving lives.
“So, I really hope that people can understand, and those persons who have been engaged in this political type of mischief would understand, that this has a lot of implications because if people are not vaccinated, they’re at higher risk of getting sick, they’re at a higher risk of going to the hospital, and they’re at a higher risk of dying,” he explained.
“So, all of us need to be on one page…that is, we need to talk to people, to get them protected. All of us need to encourage people to get vaccinated, that should be the common theme that binds us all, to encourage people to get vaccinated. And so, I really do hope that better sense prevails and that we get all those areas that have been lagging, to come out and get vaccinated.”
The APNU+AFC coalition Opposition has organised several protests in Georgetown and Linden against the government’s vaccination policy.
Many senior Opposition members including former President David Granger and Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon are fully vaccinated.
