“Vaccination is the ticket to get our life back”

Dear Editor,
After months of progress in the fight against COVID-19, in Region 10, cases are rising again as the highly contagious variant spreads across Region 10 and other regions of Guyana.
The gap in progress between highly vaccinated regions and those lagging in vaccinations keeps growing,
Some communities in Region 10 and Kwakwani are starting to see surges, despite the intervention by RHO Dr Harris and his medical team in the region.
Region 10 is getting hit particularly hard, with the high numbers of all new cases being reported in the region in general.
It is evident now that people will continue to die until we vaccinate everybody in Region 10 and Guyana, for those young people who don’t think they need to get vaccinated, hospitals across Guyana have seen plenty of young adults suffering from COVID-19 or complications of long COVID months after infection.
What I would say to the young people is that COVID-19 doesn’t have to kill you to wreck your life, but it will certainly kill your loved ones and the unvaccinated people you know.
We have learnt of new the strain that is now attacking the world, this variant of COVID is highly transmissible — the most transmissible we’ve seen to date said the US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy recently.
This is, again, a serious threat and we are seeing it spread among unvaccinated people, The virus carries a cluster of mutations, including one known as L452R, that helps it infect human cells more easily.
The Director General of the World Health Organisation has also said “Delta” the new strain of COVID is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far. The current vaccines protect well against all the variants so far, but that could change at any moment. That’s why doctors and public health officials want more people to get vaccinated.
The more we allow the virus to spread, the more opportunity the virus has to change,” the World Health Organisation advised. All 10 regions have reported cases of the highly contagious COVID-19.
In areas with high COVID-19 transmission and low vaccination rates, even vaccinated people may want to wear masks,
It is best now when you are in areas where there’s a considerable degree of viral circulation, persons might want to go the extra mile to be cautious enough to make sure that I get the extra added level of protection — even though the vaccines themselves are highly effective and the many doctors said the vaccines provide strong enough protection that those who are inoculated shouldn’t need to wear masks, except for those with extenuating circumstances like compromised immune systems.
Vaccination is “the ticket to get our life back”.
Our PPP/C Government, and the efforts of our President, Vice President and Minister of Health is now to get those who haven’t been vaccinated, to get the shot.
It is clear, almost assuredly, given enough time, and given enough opportunities, this COVID-19 can mutate into something that is resistant to our vaccines and to the natural immunity we get from having the disease when it does that it’s like pressing the reset button; you’ve got to start all over.
This virus, it’s hitting people who are unvaccinated, and it’s hospitalising 30 to 55-year-old persons now in addition to our elderly and killing them.
Let me say thank you to our health leaders as they continue educating people who are unvaccinated.
Our Government will examine the holes that still have to be filled, and they are going to fill them, but I know the PPP/C Government has done a pretty darn good job, it’s just sort of public opinion can be hard to sway when one takes into consideration our Government doing such an exceptional job handling two catastrophes at the same time – COVID-19 and the regional flooding.
RHO Dr Harris said recently they will be having meetings in the next few days about how they can ramp up their efforts to reach those that are unvaccinated.
He urged unvaccinated persons to get the COVID-19 shots as the region faces a dramatic rise in the “hyper transmissible” variant of the coronavirus. His plea included reassurances about the strength of the COVID-19 vaccines available in the Guyana.

Sincerely,
David Adams