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and good morning to you this is tdt live i am stacian providence the ministry of health is giving an update on the status of covet 19 here in trinidad and tobago and we're bringing you live coverage on ttt talk city 91.1 fm suite 100.1 fm next 99.1 fm and on facebook at ttt live online we go now to the manager of corporate communications at the ministry of health candesalta cantara good morning trinidad and tobago and happy international women's day and i see like miss providence i'm wearing a touch of purple i hope we all have a little touch of purple on us or at least in our minds today thank you for joining us for another ministry of health virtual media conference on the covet 19 response our panelists today are the honorable terrence dael singh minister of health and dr miriam abdul richards principal medical officer of institutions i'm candice alcantara manager of corporate communication for the ministry of health and i will moderate this morning we go straight to the clinical update from dr richards thank you ever so much miss alcantara good morning to the honorable minister good morning to the distinguished members of the media thank you so much for your continued attendance at these media conferences good morning trinidad and tobago and happy international women's day as we choose the challenge to fight against the covet 19 pandemic this morning i will be focusing on two areas a summary of the parallel health care system as per the media release number 656 on the 7th of march 2021 and the statistics saw clinical status of status of ongoing repatriation exercises as of 4 pm on the 7th of march 2021 98 965 covet 19 tests were done yesterday there were four confirmed cases of covet 19 bringing the number of active cases 298 it is important to note that these positive cases represented a time period between the 4th and 6th of march the remaining 94 active cases can be accounted for as follows there are 77 patients in home isolation five persons at the db step down facility and 12 patients in hospital of these 12 patients eight at the kuva medical and multi-training facility with six at the ward level and two at the icu level while four are the scarborough regional hospital all patients at discover regional hospital are at ward level thus far the number of patients as of persons as of 8 am in state and state supervised quarantine facilities is 477. we have had unfortunately 139 deaths and of course we express our sincere condolences to the families of the deceased there are two repatriation exercises that are scheduled in the next week a repatriation exercise from barbados to trinidad is scheduled for the extent of march 2021 while a similar exercise is scheduled for persons returning from miami united states of america on the 13th of march 2021 three exercises were carried out last week with the repatriation of almost 250 returning nationals in spite of the government of trinidad and trinidad and tobago comprehensive and overall successful implementation of policies and plans to keep shandar and tobago safe i would like to appeal to each one of you on behalf of the ministry of health to practice the tree w's let us not become cognizant let us wash our hands let us weigh our mass properly and let us watch our distance yes we will have a vaccine soon but given our comp our our rolling averages of four cases per day three sorry three cases per day as of this week and additionally our very low hospital occupancy rates which continue to proceed on a downward trend that is an overall hospital occupancy rate of three percent ambulatory occupancy rates of three percent hdu of zero percent and intensive care unit rates of five percent and decreasing daily we need to continue practicing our public health measures the who director general actually recognized the efforts of the population and the government of trinidad and tobago in his recent address where he emphasized the importance of public health measures and vaccination as an additional tear in the response to the covet 19 pandemic let us continue to exercise personal responsibilities to keep ourselves our families and our population safe let us continue today ladies of trinidad and tobago to choose to challenge this covet 19 epidemic thank you very much thank you very much dr richards for that update and we're going out a statement from the honorable terence de alting minister of health thank you very much candice good morning to dr richards good morning to ladies and gentlemen of the media uh good morning to the public and especially to our women today on international women's d and the theme for international women's the internal and tobago could not be more apt women in leadership achieving an equal future in the covet 19 world and yes the world really has changed a lot since the last international women's day so i salute all women this morning and yes candace i do have my little piece of purple in my tie this morning okay i would like to bring the population up to date on where we are with vaccines you may recall the last time i briefed the country on uh procurement of vaccines would have been last week saturday at that time i would have indicated that kovacs would have signed off on uh sending to trinidad and tobago in the initial stages 100 and thousand and eight hundred to do that and to bring us to that point we would have had to signed off on the sign off on the kovacs agreement which we did in september 2020 i would have had to go to cabinet for indemnification which i explained last week saturday that was done the next stage was to get the price estimate which we did last week and then what had to follow was the actual quotation so we could pay into the power who revolve and fund the actual monies what i can tell you is that we actually got the quotation last week friday and what powerhouse what powho has indicated that they are going to split the shipment into maybe two parts so they gave us a quotation which and these vaccines all things being equal again will arrive by the end of march so they gave us a quotation for thirty three thousand six hundred doses at a cost of a hundred and forty eight thousand and eighty four dollars and six cents u.s that money uh left the ministry of health on friday afternoon it has gone to the central bank and between today and tomorrow those funds will be deposited into the power revolving fund that is the last step on our end it means now we just wait now for delivery of the first tranche of our 100 000 which we are guaranteed at this stage of 33 600 to begin our vaccination program and then the rest of the vaccines will follow as originally stated between march and may so we were allocated a hundred thousand eight hundred according to paahu between march and may we will be getting 33 600. we decided to go this route and not to wait for the entire shipment because you never can tell what could happen and an entire shipment might be delayed so we are very happy to receive to be receiving 33 600 and the balance of 67 000 will come i am told sometime in april into early may with this 33 600 it means we could start a more vigorous campaign of vaccinating our healthcare workers there's one population that we want to finish off that after healthcare workers will be the elderly long stay homes it's a roughly about 987 so we could do that entire population and then start according to the kovacs basis on equity start to deal with some of our ncd patients so we have done everything on our end and i'm happy um that we have decide we really pros on cons of acceptance 33 or waiting for the entire shipment we felt at this stage with things being so uncertain in the global scene with supply um not being able to keep up with demand that it is better to take this first ranch of 33 600 and begin our vaccination program we are also in talks and those talks are going on right now at the ministry uh with the chief medical officer and the principal pharmacist which signed the farm sign of arms dossier um for their phase three trials i was informed this morning is currently before who so that is good news again it means there's a potential for a fourth who vaccine to become available and as you know we have been in talks with the chinese uh embassy here since last year and cinder farm since last year so we have our foot in the door for that potential source of vaccines we also continue to host bilateral talks with serum institute of india we are also having bilateral talks with bharat biotech of india again for the corvax and vaccine but again we will only be importing vaccines into trinidad and tobago once they are who certified so the ministry of foreign affairs and the ministry of health are working together with on these diplomatic channels to acquire vaccines for trinidad and tobago another development is that at the start of january 2021 i had indicated that if our case numbers continue to be low as they have been a rolling seven day average of between three to six is a very good place to be i did indicate that it means i could take a rima hospital off the covert grid and return it to its original mandate that is now being done so i want to thank trinidad and tobago for working with us at the ministry of health because our numbers are so low because we are so well protected we are able now to take a reamer of the grid and return it we are also pursuing very vigorously the procurement of vaccines out of the african medical council's platform we are registered as a purchaser we were initially told we could purchase 226 000 doses that has since gone up significantly across three vaccine platforms astrazeneca pfizer and um i think it's i can't remember the third third one zenika fisa and the third third one but we have significantly upped our request for vaccines now up to 446 000 via the african medical um council's platform again we are waiting for price estimates and estimated times of arrival so that is where we are we eagerly await we have paid for uh we have paid 148 000 um us dollars a hundred and forty eight thousand and eighty four dollars and six cents um as i said those funds should hit powerhouse revolving fund account between today and tomorrow and that is the final step towards um the acquisition of our first ranch of the hundred thousand eight hundred doses of astrazeneca vaccines to really start making a dent in our vaccination program so candice that's the update this morning and thank you and we look forward to answering your questions thank you very much minister dayal singh we go now to the question and answer segment i invite media representatives to indicate your name and the media house that you represent before posing your bereaved questions please um more than two at this time and please ask both questions at the same time so we can keep things rolling if we have additional time of course we will come back to you if you have an additional question we begin this morning with questions from newsday newspaper hello good morning minister um and everyone on each panel as well i was turning around to be happy and international women's day are two quick questions first concerning the uh the 33 000 vaccinations what is the plan uh first of all with distribution of the um vaccinations will half of these vaccinations be used and then the other half stored in preparation for the second trench or will be using the full trench and expectation for another 33 hours um the second question would uh actually deals with canada canada cleared on johnson and johnson uh last week for about four vaccines uh i want to know if uh bilateral talks with johnson and john johnson which um the ministry has indicated it has that um progress as well thank you thank you um ryan and those are two very reasonable questions to ask so the 33 000 if it's a two-shot vaccine it means you are vaccinating roughly let's say 15 to 16 000 persons that will that could take care of all our health sector workers the cmo myself and we will sit down with paahu and once we know for a fact when the other 67 000 doses are coming in we could take a decision to go full steam ahead and use out all 33 000 but that is the decision we will make sometime in the future but it's a good question to ask as a is a nice problem to have on the issue of canada yes i note that um pfizer ah johnson johnson oh that was the third vaccine out of um african-american yeah it was it was fizer johnson johnson and after thank you ryan yeah so we are still awaiting um we chose approval and as you know any country that approves a vaccine lends more credible evidence so if it is approved by fda that is good if it's approved by canada that is good if it is approved by the european medicine agency that is good if it is approved by health england public health england that is good it just lends more and more credibility to the vaccine but our tipping point in trinidad and tobago has always been who certification and yes we are in talks with johnson and johnson at various levels so thank you ryan for your two really good questions thank you we go now to azp news please hi good morning private hari asapnews.com good morning to everyone especially to to kindness and to dr abdul richards okay my first question um i wanted to find out if if um everything categorically stated that um nurse private gomez was actually the first one to receive the vaccine because their reports that dr malcolm received the vaccine one hour before nurse um this companies provide governments no no the issue is um not who actually see the boxes nothing was the second the point is whether the the population was misled into believing something that was not true so i just wanted to get back okay i think he has a second oh sorry sorry mr bihari you have a second question and my second question is there was supposed to be a function on friday last at woodford square but by the cadillac movement and they will refuse permission um the official reason um that was stated by by one arm of the members the banks and he said that there was a mix-up between cmo and email for the spin so i just wanted to find out why the movement was refused um permission on friday when there was a similar function held on february 12th at the same venue but but it will refuse the use of wood first fear on friday one so i just needed to get that that quiet thanks so thank you so priya the issue that you have reached your first question you have raised already the information i have is that nurse pravat was the first but if you have other information that's fine um the seo city function in woodford square um i i really don't have much information to add to it um host enough functions in woodford square i suppose falls under the corporation for the spain corporation and if you have to have permission from the police and so on but i just want to remind the public as dr richard stated what is happening in trinidad and tobago because our numbers are so good people are being lulled into a false sense of security yes we are doing well but we are doing well because we are conducting ourselves in a responsible manner every congregation whether in the public domain or in the private domain um dr janine sin bernard was here last week talking about the number of positive cases she is getting a county currently based on private parties so prior the messages any gathering whether inside or outside has the potential to spread covet trinidad and tobago is not covert free what we have done is done a very good job led by the prime minister with the involvement of 1.4 million people working together as a team to bring trinidad and tobago to a point where we can report to you today that we have a rolling average of three to four cases that is something we should celebrate but in celebrating it is the position we should seek to protect let's protect that position by all adopting a sense of responsibility but as to the particulars of woodsworth square i wouldn't be in a position to talk to that you could talk to either the commissioner police or the or the mayor who has domain over watford square thank you minister we go now to 98.1 fm please and a very good morning to the panel and um uh you know happy international women's day to you candice and of course dr richards um just uh two simple questions um for ministe
dialsting um i was going to ask you about you know giving us an update on our you know the latest report and on uh covert 19 of vaccination drive but you did address that in your opening um however um ministry also do you have any realistic realistic timeline or projections when we can possibly see trinidad and tobago achieving a herd immunity in the continuation of our vaccination process and secondly uh to you again minister dael singh there was an earlier report which stated that there was a temporary stoppage in the administering of covet vaccines to an initial group any further developments on this thank you so much um thank you mr cummings and i haven't seen you for a while well welcome back so let's take your second question first i am not aware of what stoppage you are referring to would you like to explain the stoppage of the vaccinations that you're referring to sir mr cummings i think you may be muted uh just unmute your mic for us and and start over thank you yes i was um i was aware that there was a temporary hold on the administering of vaccines i think some were being held back um for uh you know for a future um purpose uh i just wanted to get some clarity on that sure sure i understand you know so it's not a temporary stoppage mr comments it is a policy position that we took that because that the astrazeneca vaccine is a two-dose vaccine whatever amount of vaccines we get especially if it's a limited amount you vaccinate a half of that number and then you hold the other half so that those same persons get their second dose so it is not a stoppage it's a policy position that when you reach a half as i have stated publicly that you hold back the other half of those same positions so that is what we have done right um on the issue of when we will reach herd immunity as we have said herd immunity depends on vaccinating up close between 50 to 70 percent of your population dr richards will go into that in some detail but the question you ask as to when we cannot give a date because simply we are not in complete control of the supply of vaccines so it is only when we have when the world and i want to refer you mr cummings a very good article written in one of the sunday's newspapers anybody could remember which one um i think it could have been the express a very good article on his sunday express which speaks to two things one the global fight for vaccines two the fact that one or two countries are now suing kovacs because they can't get vaccines and three the article um didn't mention the fact that because our numbers are so good which we spoke about before you may find that trinidad and tobago may be disadvantaged because of that so acquiring herd immunity depends on a series of factors supply of vaccines whether kovacs can deliver the success we will have in bilateral talks the prime minister of the republic of trinidad and tobago and caricam chairman has called for a world conference on the equitable distribution of vaccines because what is happening now mr cummins is an inequitable distribution of vaccines you have the richer countries bigger countries where the vaccines are being manufactured having more vaccines than they need and if you pay attention to what has happened between italy and australia which was again carried in that sunday um article yesterday there was a shipment of vaccines manufactured in italy bound for australia and the italian government took a decision that they were not going to allow the shipment to leave italy so there are so many things happening globally politically economically um on the vaccine procurement front but we are happy that we have paid for our first batch of 33 600 vaccines which all things being equal as i always say should be here by the end of march so we could start our own robust vaccination program i don't know dr richards want to talk about hood immunity now i'll just summarize and reiterate what the honourable minister spoke about but in terms of herd immunity we are looking at a percentage coverage from the population of about 75 percent and i'd like to remind members of the population and encourage empower and educate everyone with respect to receiving the vaccine the vaccine does not just protect you from developing or contracting covet 19 it also protects persons who are high risk and your family especially children and pregnant women it decreases their risk of contracting of contracting the covet 19. thank you very much and we go now to wired 868 all please good morning everyone afayola bostik why did succeed um i have just two the questions today my first question is for um ministerial singh minister we we when we um thought we were gonna get um the hundred thousand at the first it was end of beginning of march and now it's the end of of march maybe april could you just give us a sense of how this procurement will does covers have a facility where it accepts and you know separates vaccines um bound for certain countries or is it coming from to directly manufacture i'm just trying to get a sense of why there would have been these delays and why we would need to split it split the um the shipment now and the second question is for dr richards doctor just can you let us know if um how repatriation flights if they've been increasing decreasing or what is happening in terms of repatriation flights given our low numbers and given the state that we're in right now thank you okay thank you thank you fiola so as i said at the start there is an absolute shortage of vaccines around the world supply has not yet caught up with demand the kovacs facility is based on the whole issue of equity and it is in the public domain a lot of the major vaccine manufacturers prefer to sell their vaccines on the commercial market at prices much higher than the covax facility our vaccines our astrazeneca vaccines are coming from south korea that is what i was told by paahu it's called the sk astrazeneca and they have to weigh the fact that they are not getting enough vaccines as promised so i would imagine that that is a choice that they have to make and we are still very very grateful that we are getting um an initial 33 600 towards that hundred thousand dose regime between march and may so we could start a very vigorous vaccination campaign so the reason for the split shipment is sound it was either that or wait for the whole hundred thousand and you never could tell what could happen so we took a decision at the ministry of health to go with this and then i am dealing directly um through paho with washington to get certain guarantees and we continue to push trinidad and tobago's case around the world notwithstanding our low case numbers that we are a sound place for vaccines to reach us so we can vaccinate our population thank you very much faiola good morning feola as is customary i would like to re-emphasize that the approval for nationals and others to enter trinidad and tobago falls under the ministry of national security however what i would indicate is that the ministry of health continues to support the ministry of national security as the return and the safe return and accommodation of all repatriated nationals is a government priority regarding the flights that you would have discussed the number of repatriation flights continues to be at intervals of basically eight to 11 days the barbados the returning repatriated nationals from barbados however undergo a quarantine period of 14 days on the state or state supervised quarantine as opposed to persons returning from other countries such as the united states of america and canada that is because of the prevalence of the new strain of covert 19 one of the new strains sorry in barbados as such the barbados repatriations tend to be spaced out at about 16 day intervals to allow for the safe accommodation of retaining nationals uh what we have noted in recent in over the last three months is that we we are seeing a 980 to 90 percent acceptance of persons who are approved for exemptions to enter trinidad and tobago a such a repatriation flight now consists of about 100 to 120 persons entering the country um again the spacing and intervals of those flights continues to be at about a ten day um spacing dependent on the ministry of health's availability of accommodation and the sites or the departure ports for those flights continue to be out of miami new york toronto and barbados with flights basically led between um at guyana grenada and other countries um the variant in barbados really is or the variant that is present in barbados is the uk variant and in trying to protect our country from this variant we really extended that quarantine period for persons so that they are monitored and tested to reduce the risk of the variant being here thank you very much dr richards we go now to cnc three please hi morning everyone guardian media limited okay so my first question and it says i just want a little bit more um clarity so it deals with the vaccination drive is it that when we're doing all phases phase one and phase two considering the difficulties in which we have in acquiring doses is it that we're going to go to each category and when that category is completed then we move on to the other one or is it that we're going to just go across all the categories of people who need to be vaccinated and my second question is to you as well minister a number of people have been emailing and contacting us wondering about if they have ncds or if they fall within any of these categories but they don't treat it through the public system how can they access the vaccinations thank you rashad again those are quite important and reasonable questions to ask so again it depends on the number of vaccines you have at your disposal if you have a hundred thousand eight hundred doses that we expect between march uh april and may it will be done mainly sequentially that is healthcare workers together with the persons in long-stay homes as i indicated roughly 987 and then we started tackle as we have always said the ncd patients in our health sector if the supply should open up and we should get 500 000 a million doses then we could look beyond doing things sequentially and then open up the entire system we already have plans in place for mass vaccination sites working with the trinitabego medical association so that anyone can access vaccines but it all depends richard on the number of vaccines we get at any one point in time so if vaccines are not plentiful it is going to have to be sequentially so in phase one healthcare workers persons with ncds and the our elderly long stay homes phase two as we have always told the public we then go down to essential workers who are some of the categories and essential workers front line police frontline army front light coast guard teachers especially those who are now out it is based on the principle of high exposure high vulnerability so a form five six form four five and six teacher is more highly exposed than the form one teacher who is at home so it's based on that same word called equity high exposure high vulnerability then you might want to do fire you want to do immigration you want to do customs i have included parliamentarians in that group and that is how we stratify however as i said if vaccine supply starts to pick up then we could look beyond stratification we could look beyond doing things sequentially and do different groups concurrently including the general public i hope that answers your question richard and the second question minister well the same thing with anthony so you know anybody with a ncd it again it depends on whether we do it sequentially based on a certain number of vaccines or just go across the board thank you very much minister we go now to tv6 please good morning everyone from cv6 happy international women's day um minister uh i'd like to find out which vaccines are being considered um for approval by the food and drug division and it's the status of it how soon as well because i from what i understand that may allow persons private entities to now import the vaccines right that's question one question two we saw one original conglomerate they issued a statement indicating that they intended to vaccinate all of the employees across um different islands of the region um i think it's about 6 000 in all and i think that they also indicate that they would have spoken with governments to be able to facilitate this so i'm asking if the government the ministry of health by the government environment of health has has engaged in any discussions with ansa macau regarding the vaccination of the employees one and is isn't this counter the principle of equitable access thank you so i'll take a second question first you assumed that we have partnered to do that and we have not because i addressed this same question ovashi two weeks ago any vaccine any importer is free let me so okay let me let me go back the only vaccine approved by chemistry wooden drugs right now for trinidad and tobago is astrazeneca johnston johnson and fisa are not yet approved the local agents will have to make that approach and as i have said for any drug any local distributor goes to chemistry food and drugs there's a drug advisory committee that sits and approves drugs it's the same process to approve any new vaccine as we have been using for decades to approve new drugs so at this particular point in time only astrazeneca has been approved because the government made an approach to chemistry food and drugs not the local distributor because it's not available for private seal as yet to answer your specific question the government and i have said this before has made no provision to give any private sector firm vaccines for their staff alone so let me see that again the vaccines coming in through kovacs are assigned to trinidad and tobago the consignee is the ministry of health slash nip deck it does not pass through any local agent any third party any local pharmaceutical distributor and that is the way power who has always dealt with trinidad and tobago for 40 years i know people think that we are now doing this for the first time all the vaccines we buy via paho all whereas yellow fever mmr tetanus all vaccines that we purchased from paho are consigned to the ministry of health and neptek they don't pass through a third party they don't pass through a local distributor they don't pass through a middleman so i want to say that and again so as thank you for raising the issue however as i have said many times before there will come a time sometime in the future when supply catches up with demand and then the vaccine starts to become commoditized and available on a commercial basis at that point in time the local distributor can make an application to chemistry food and drugs as they are accustomed doing for 40 years to bring in a new drug there's a drug advisory committee that sits under the chairmanship of the chief medical officer they do their work once the drug is approved the minister of health whoever he is whomsoever he is signs off on it at that point in time any private sector firm is free to purchase vaccines on the commercial market but any vaccines that we get via kovacs african medicine council platform or any bilateral talks between the government and another government or the government on another manufacturer will not be going to the private sector but will be made available to the public so uh rasheed thank you for raising the issue again and i hope that answers your question thank you minister we go now to express newspaper please hi good morning everyone for tuning express now my question this morning is my first question is based on international reports coming out of austria the australian government have suspended um the use of astrazeneca shots based on two instances of two persons um one there's a debt and the other person was hospitalized um with adverse events after taking the astrazeneca vaccine if they were two female healthcare workers so my question is um is there now a cause for concern seeing that we are about to receive the astrazeneca vaccine and we are beginning with um vaccinating our healthcare workers um that's my first question and the second question um the yachting industry um they want they would like
to have an update um on whether they'll be opening they'll be allowed to open up for their foreign ads to come in um they said the last update they receive is that uh minister yang will to speak to you on that matter okay thank you thank you so on the issue of the austrian case we will continue to be led by the science at this point in time there is no conclusive evidence linking the death to the vaccine at this point in time so whilst we pay attention to these things there is no conclusive evidence one two um the issue of opening up the yachting industry as you know i have said on this platform many times i don't make policy on air because a question is posed the issue of opening up the yachting industry is one that will be made jointly by the ministry of national security the ministry of health and all rollbacks of measures are always announced and eventually decided upon by the honorable prime minister so i as minister of health are going to be very consistent in my approach i don't make policy just because a question is posed to me on air i understand and i empathize with all sectors those few sectors of the economy that are still closed believe me we understand but the issue of variance around the world has thrown a spanner in the works and again i want to urge all because we have a rolling average of three to four to six cases a day does not mean that we lose all these gains by making decisions which may make you popular in the short term but which can have long-term consequences i empathize with everyone who still cannot open as they would like but the gains we have made we have to do two things with those gains one celebrate them thank the population but two most importantly we have to protect those gains we have to protect those gains as dr heinz will see when you have high blood pressure or diabetes and you start to take your medication you start to feel good doesn't mean when you start to feel good you stop taking the medication and that is what we are constantly being pushed to do we have applied a certain degree of medication to the country and we are feeling better we are feeling good but now is not the time to stop taking the medication and then the country has to go back to accident and emergency because we lost all the gains that we made i understand the cries i myself spoke to the yachting i want to call his name because i don't have permission to do i myself spoke to him but at this point in time i cannot make a decision on air thank you very much thank you very much minister we go to a quick follow-up question from azp news please and morning again um i don't want to follow up again on the issue of of the conservation groups who deal with it nesting minister um you know beaches up close at 6 p.m and most of obviously they do nest at night and they were wondering if if you know some exemptions could be made for them to you know continue to operate of course you know um i'm adhering to the cooper 19 protocols so prior thank you for the question to so two two things now should possibly be the safest time for turtles because no one is allowed on the beach to poach eggs or to kill the turtles or ride on their backs so now should be the safest time for turtles but prior i just gave a very very detailed response to why we can't open up the yachting industry on air the same principle applies if we start to make one exemption one exception then you have i get 10 20 letters a day for exceptions and exemptions and everyone could be justified but you do one you have to do all and then the gains we have made prior the gains that we have made we will lose them and people will start to die of covet our elderly will start to die the best way we could prevent trinidad and tobago from being re-admitted to the accident and emergency ward is to continue to take the medicine although we feel good is the same analogy with high blood pressure and diabetes and antibiotics when you go to the doctor and he gives you a seven day course of antibiotics the first thing he tells you you will start to feel good after two days but take all take the course we are on a course that is saving lives look at our hospital our hospital rates our hospital rates are low our normal hospital services go on unabated that should be celebrated but i always also say it should be protected we have to protect these hard-fought gains we don't want to go back to september you remember those years prior when we had community spread that is what the calls for op for just releasing everything will do to us let us protect lives protect the gains protect the businesses that are open and protect the businesses that want to be open so i hear the calls i am sympathetic but at this point in time we should be protecting the gains that we have made so that when we get our vaccinations and start a vaccination program then these then these um issues could be entertained in a more robust manner thank you very much brian thank you very much minister we go to white868 for a brief question please hi good morning again uh my question uh to the minister is concerning the vaccination shipment again um i'm wondering what triggers the sending of the quotation and the paying of the bills because um we were expecting the hundred thousand vaccines for some time but we only recently received the quotation and paid that's what i'm understanding that you're seeing right so i'm wondering when um what would trigger the sending of the quotation for the second half 67 000 and whether or not you know would it make sense to pay down now for it or what why would you wait till april me to pay again or what would trigger that um that quotation to come yeah so fiola um um you have asked a question that we at the ministry have raised with paho and we have offered to pay upfront we have actually made that offer to pay upfront and they are looking at it we made that offer last week wednesday or thursday i believe and they are looking at it so that we could secure the other tranche of 67 000 so i thank you for raising the issue and you and i are thinking along the exact same line so thank you very much thank you minister cnc3 we're ready for your follow-up question please all right thank you again um just a quick comment from minister evan dr richards um so dr richards i you in your explanation there just know you said that we are looking at around 70 to 75 percent of people for hood immunity in the country but by way of the exclusion criteria so those when saying pregnant the young and that kind of thing by all calculations it's around 26 of the population may not be able to receive that vaccine um so how do things like vaccine hesitancy or vaccine skepticism or even outright anti-vaxxers how do you figure that is going to play into the ministry's um medium to long-term plans for that um generation of hooded immunity okay i will attempt to answer that so right now the exclusion criteria excludes about 400 000 persons from the population so we have 1.4 million people the exclusion criteria right now is anybody under 18. so that takes off roughly 400 000 pregnant women that will take off in any given year 15 000 persons persons who are allergic you know a small amount but let's let's let's work with four hundred thousand what will change that dynamic richard and again i i'm really grateful for the questions being asked this morning they are all very very good questions the companies are now starting clinical trials on persons under 18. they are now starting clinical trials on pregnant women why because they now have some data in the pregnant woman of pers of women who did not know they were pregnant who got the vaccine and they're being monitored throughout their pregnancy so you will get some data in a few months stating whether the vaccine is actually safe for pregnant women or not so that is one population you will get data on because over 150 million doses of covet vaccines of all the platforms and it's probably more have been administered around the world with very little adverse effects they are now starting trials in children and then when you get that data set in a few months that will go to who hopefully by that time we could determine based on what the data sets say that the vaccine is safe for children and then we could based on the data sets and who's independent approval process how it works is that they will make a determination on the issue of vaccine hesitancy i could tell you richard we are pleasantly surprised at the level of vaccine acceptance in trinidad and tobago we were concerned that the first 2000 doses we will have to really sell it to healthcare workers but i always go back to the symposium we did at uwe candice when was that the 7th of 7th of february february and then the internal work we have been doing with the rhs with healthcare workers has led a very high degree of vaccine acceptance and members of the public are now clamoring for the vaccine so i am buoyed i am happy at the level of vaccine acceptance in trinidad and tobago but thank you for those two questions and next we go to tv6 please uh minister thanks again for the opportunity um just to find out a little bit about the payment to the poolbox facility now we know that government would have um well the cabinet with regards to 66 million to vaccinate 83 percent of the population we're getting 20 percent of the vaccines required from callbacks um but don pieman had the need if you could just give me some clarity on if a dom payment had been made to callbacks and this 148 um thousand us dollars is for is for the 33 600 vaccines could you just break down the pricing for me thank you yeah again thank you for the question so government all member countries to the kovacs facility had to make a down payment which went towards research and development because you had poor resources for research and development funding it is one of the reasons that the vaccines would be able were able to be developed so quickly because you had pool funding companies didn't have to go out there and look for grant funding and beg for funding and go to foundations for funding we paid 1.477 million us dollars up front to what's that r d effort let me give you some details which i will share with you now to show how in theory if we all support kovacs it could work to our advantage in september we had no idea of what the final price of vaccines would be so in september the cabinet note based on kovacs's estimated pricing spoke to an indicative price of 10 and 56 cents u.s produce with an escalation double that up to 21 us dollars per dose that is what countries signed up for back in september not knowing what the final price will be so look at that price 10.56 with an escalation up to 21 double the actual price we are paying now for these vaccines under kovacs and this is a brilliant thing about kovacs if we could all adhere to it it's below four dollars u.s so while since september the cabinet notes booked the 10 us with an escalation up to 21 us where you could opt out because 21 u.s produce is a it's a lot of money when you consider it's a two dose vaccine but right now we are paying via covax under four dollars us a dose and that is a brilliant thing about the principle of the kovacs facility and what we have to do as a world economy is to try and support the covax facility because it means many more countries can afford the vaccines at a cost of four us as opposed an indicative price of ten dollars u.s up to 21 us so that is how the pricing works rashi um the actual payment as i said we always pay for vaccines we acquire from parho through something called the revolving fund this has been done for decades the same principle applies the ministry of health receives a quotation the ministry of health sends the funds down to the central bank and the central bank forwards it to the paajo revolving fund that should be done between today and tomorrow and that's the final hurdle we have to cross to get our vaccines and i think fiola had asked yes we are exploring making upfront payments to kovacs to secure our future shipments of vaccines so i hope i have given you a complete answer to a very good question thank you minister and we just have a little minute left newsday a very quick question please our last question this morning okay last question uh concerning the uh uk strainer um coke with 19 uh we had one report treated our uh national who had it i just wanted to get an update on his condition and if there were any other uh repatriates for anyone else in in fact that showed that stream um as confirmed publicly there was one one repatriated national with the uk variant however due to patient confidentiality and ethics that we abide by with the ministry of health at the ministry of health i would be unable at this time to provide an update on the person's clinical update status thank you thank you very much we have come to the end of this morning's media conference and we remind everyone please remember the three w's wash your hands wear your mask and watch your distance between yourselves and others outside of your household bubble everyone be safe and enjoy the rest of the international women's day you
