One million Trinidadians need to take vaccine for herd immunity - CMO

(Trinidad Express) At least 1 million Trinidadians need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity from COVID-19. This is according to the Chief Medical Officer Roshan Parasram who was speaking yesterday morning at a COVID-19 news conference. He urged citizens to take the vaccine.

Parasram said that vaccines are “among the most important public health interventions in history.” adding that if uptake is great, herd immunity can be achieved.

Approximately 70 per cent of the population need to be vaccinated to meet this goal which he said would protect more vulnerable subsets who may not be able to receive the vaccine.

“We are looking at 70 per cent of the population in general just bearing in mind that most of the COVID-19 vaccines are available to persons over 18 meaning that we already have segment of the population who can’t be vaccinated, children, persons who are pregnant, breastfeeding, persons who have severe allergic reactions to components of the vaccines. All the rest of us need to come forward and have the vaccine to protect those in orange. When we do our calculations, we have approximately 1 million people who can take the vaccine and we are asking everyone to come forward and have your COVID vaccine while it is available,” he said.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), herd immunity is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune. This is achieved through vaccination or through previous infection. The latter, the WHO says is unethical and may lead to unnecessary infections, suffering and death.