The Tribune

IN yesterday’s Tribune, we reported on the concerns of nurses with a number of workers sick with COVID, and one having recently died. Those are valid concerns indeed – so why is it that in today’s Tribune, we hear that there is a hesitancy within healthcare workers to take the vaccine?

Catherine Weech, the managing director of Princess Margaret Hospital, said yesterday that spread of the virus might be less of an issue if more health workers were vaccinated, and with so many healthcare workers on the frontline in the fight against COVID-19, it is alarming to think that so many are open to exposure.

The head of the nurses union, Amancha Williams, was speaking out this week about the fears of nurses, talking about problems with air conditioning and warning that “bacteria, the spread of viruses, everything grows in heat. Body fluids are passing from one person to the next in that kind of environment, especially when you have no windows to open up to allow the air to circulate”.

Wind back to December last year, however, and Ms Williams, was expressing her own hesitancy about vaccinations – saying it should not be mandatory for nurses to take the jab, and saying: “My advice is to give it a year. Make the rest of the world test it and bring it to your country.”

By that reckoning, we would still have months to go before we would be taking our first jabs.

Taking a look at the statistics in the US, it has been reported that 99.2 percent of deaths there in June were people who had not received their vaccination.

So if the numbers are showing such an increased likelihood of survival if you have had your vaccination, why are so many health workers so wary of getting their shots?

Ms Weech said: “We are still trying to get 70 percent of the population vaccinated, until such time as healthcare workers get vaccinated – that would be brilliant to get to that point – but I don’t think we will because there is too much negative information out there.

“They are part of the general community. We can’t look at them and say they are different from others who are making the same decision. You would think that as healthcare workers they would, but they are not.”

You could sense the exasperation as Ms Weech concluded with “I just don’t know what to say”.

There is a lot of misinformation out there – so listen to reliable sources, not ones that can’t be confirmed, and don’t share things blindly that could be misleading. Some complain about those who post pictures after receiving their vaccinations, but that helps to normalise the process and show that people you know, people around you are putting their faith in science and not random Facebook accounts.

Look again at those statistics from the US and think. That vaccination could save your life.

Abaco ambition

You have to feel for Matt Winslow.

His $90m project in Abaco was supposed to reinvigorate the area. He had all the approvals… and then came Hurricane Dorian.

The storm blasted his property just as it did the rest of Abaco. Playing his part to help, he allowed his land to be used as a temporary dumping site for debris from the storm. The debris piled up, and up, to reach several storeys high. His calls to the Disaster Reconstruction Authority (DRA) to remove the waste has yet to produce any action, however, so the debris remains there.

And now he has run into another challenge, with up to 200 squatters on his land and the government and government authorities declining to help after the ruling on demolition of shanty towns last month.

You can understand when he says “frustration has reached a peak”.

Admirably, Mr Winslow says that his project is “less important than rebuilding the community”, but he does point out it will bring jobs, and millions of dollars. It will help rebuild the economy – and that will help rebuild the community.

He should also be entitled to answers from the DRA over why he can’t get a helping hand after he offered one of his own.

So we hope the authorities can offer that hand – and Elbow Cay can look forward to another part of their economic revival.