Get Vaccinated to Protect Yourself & Your Family: Ali
As a Permanent Secretary for Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport, Shaheen Ali is reminded every day of the duty of care he has to the Fijians the Ministry serves.
Mr Ali said getting vaccinated was important and the responsibility of him and his staff members.
“One of the greatest encouragements we offer is a sense of responsibility and solidarity to collectively see and understand the importance of vaccines,” he said.
“Vaccination rates are already uneven across the world. One of the greatest threats with an asymmetric roll-out is that the tourism sector will recover faster in countries with higher vaccination rates.”
MCTTT staff
He said majority of the Ministry has received their first jabs, with more getting fully vaccinated across their divisions.
“In fact, some of our Departments like Tourism and Trade are already fully vaccinated,” Mr Ali said.
He also said the Ministry had been working with their industry partners and the Ministry of Health and Medical Services to encourage and drive vaccination campaigns, including in communities.
“Tourism operators such as Duavata Sustainable Tourism Collective, are supporting MHMS by providing transport and personnel in provinces such as Nadroga, Navosa, Ra to get our communities vaccinated.
“We have also been working with the business community, especially in the Lami-Suva-Nausori corridor, to ramp up vaccines in their workplace.”
Mr Ali said the Ministry also used its social media channels to cover stories of businesses and Fijians getting vaccinated to advocate and encourage getting vaccinated.
“We call this the ‘new normal’ for a reason. We need to adapt and learn as science evolves,” he said.
He said one very important way to adapt was to get vaccinated.
“We have done this before for other pandemics for centuries and we can do it again. While health reasons are obvious in the sense you protect yourself and others from getting severely ill by reducing your viral load, we need to also have a socio-economic lens to it,” he said.
“Vaccination can mean the difference between life and death – and we know this because we’re seeing it happen. And we’re losing those who are otherwise strangers, but now our loved ones.”
“I made the conscious decision to get vaccinated to protect not just myself, but my family.”
He said: “When more of us get vaccinated, we relieve the burden on our health system, we get to relieve the burden on our health care workers, our disciplined forces, and our frontliners who’ve worked tirelessly for the last year and a half.”
“We can open our borders, welcome back visitors, go back to our jobs, go to our places of worship with our families, and all the other things we can’t do right now.”
Mr Ali got his first vaccine jab in the second week of April this year.
His family got theirs around the same time as well.
“We are now fully vaccinated, after receiving the second dose of the vaccine in early July,” he said.
One of the greatest encouragements we offer is a sense of responsibility and solidarity to collectively see and understand the importance of vaccines.