A plea to get vaccinated before it is too late
Fifty thousand Australian-made AstraZeneca doses arrived in Solomon Islands on 29 July on a flight from Brisbane - the largest single consignment of AstraZeneca doses yet to arrive in Solomon Islands from anywhere in the world.
Australia is delivering on its pledge to provide Solomon Islands with up to 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. This is the second shipment of Australian-made vaccines to arrive in Solomon Islands, following the 13,000 doses which were delivered on 11 June. These 50,000 doses form part of Australia’s pledge to work with the Solomon Island’s Government to provide a steady, reliable, and safe supply of vaccines to help protect the community and those on the frontline.
Australian High Commissioner Dr Lachlan Strahan said his office has been working in close partnership with the Ministry of Health and medical Services on the vaccine roll-out to ensure these doses and future consignments are available when they are needed and can be administered in accordance with the Solomon Island Government’s vaccination roll-out strategy.
“Australia’s pledge of up to 1 million doses of AstraZeneca means there will be enough safe and effective vaccine doses to ensure the entire Solomon Islands population over 18 can get vaccinated. This consignment of 50,000 doses is the first of many more batches on their way from CSL in Melbourne,” Dr Strahan said.
Underscoring the importance of vaccination when the Delta strain is affecting countries all over the world, Dr Strahan said, “The Solomon Island Government has done a great job to date in the fight against COVID-19, but with the Delta strain in our region, it’s time for all of us redouble our efforts. The Delta strain is more much more transmissible and possibly more virulent. Sadly, it’s wreaking havoc in our own region. The health and economic impacts of COVID-19 can’t be underestimated.”
“Now more than ever, we must urge everyone, in the strongest possible terms, to get the jab to help protect their families, friends, workmates and neighbours. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Listen to scientific advice, not nonsensical and utterly false conspiracy theories. The AstraZeneca vaccine can help us protect each other. It’s 92 per cent effective against the Delta strain with two doses,” said Dr Strahan.
Solomon Islands and Australia are committed to working together to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. This consignment of AstraZeneca doses forms part of Australia’s broader commitment to help vaccinate quickly our friends and neighbours in the Pacific at a time when the international supply of vaccines is constrained.
Australia’s support for a Pacific response to the global pandemic builds on our longstanding and ongoing investment in health services and combating other infectious and non-communicable disease threats.
Source: Press Release
Taking a look at the situation in Fiji, the country reported 1301 new cases of Covid-19 for the 24 hours to 8am yesterday.
The government also confirmed nine more deaths, bringing the toll to 227.
That compares with 1057 cases and 12 deaths in the previous 24-hour period.
Health Secretary Dr James Fong said on Thursday night all of the victims were unvaccinated.
Dr Fong said the deaths were reported on the 26-27 July.
Fiji now has 20,200 active cases in isolation with the death toll at 227, 225 from the latest outbreak that began in April.
Source. Radio New Zealand.
If one looks at the situation in the United Kingdom where some 80 percent of the population has already been vaccinate against Covid-19, around 60,000 coronavirus deaths and 22 million infections have been prevented by the UK’s vaccination programme, according to new official figures from Public Health England (PHE).
And PHE estimated that some 95.5 per cent of the adult population now have antibodies to Covid-19 from either infection or vaccination, raising hopes that the country may be moving towards “herd immunity”.
Source. The Guardian newspaper
In one of my most recent letters to the local media, I likened the responsibility to getting vaccinated against Covid-19 as a personal obligation akin to the customary obligations one has to each other in the customary practices of wantokism. I still believe this although the obligation to get vaccinated is not mandated as is being discussed as perhaps it should.
To speed COVID vaccine uptake and bring the pandemic to an end, some commentators are calling on their governments to mandate immunization as a condition for participating in society. This may seem like a reasonable policy
Never mind your liberties, there's a deadly virus on the loose, and that's justification enough for the government to mandate that you get a COVID shot. In so many words, that's the case some legal scholars and political commentators are making in support of a coercive vaccine policy. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean and professor of law at the UC Berkeley School of Law, summed up this argument in a recent opinion piece.
"It is time to focus on the duty we all have to protect each other and to end this pandemic. The government should require vaccinations as soon as vaccine supplies allow, and we should remind everyone that freedom does not include a right to endanger others."
Chemerinsky is both well-meaning and on solid legal footing. Getting a COVID vaccine is the best thing we can do to protect ourselves and others from infection. And the US Supreme Court has ruled that governments can mandate vaccination if doing so is deemed necessary to protect public health.
COVID-19 vaccines are probably safer than most routine medical interventions ... but the way in which false information has been spread by social media in the Solomon Islands and in Papua New Guinea and in Fiji has been detrimental to vaccine programmes.
I have spoken out about the spreading and distribution of false news and so too has the Prime Minister.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
www.solomonislandsinfocus.com
