Health workers, MPs, prisoners to be among first to get COVID vaccine

Some 440,000 Jamaicans who are frontline workers or who may be vulnerable because of age or where they live, are in line to receive the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccines as it becomes available in Jamaica.

The first batch of vaccines is expected to arrive in Jamaica in April, the health ministry has disclosed.

Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton said healthcare workers, the elderly who are 60 years and older, members of the Jamaica Defence Force, the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the Jamaica Fire Brigade and the Department of Correctional Services, as well as employees of the Customs department, will be among the group of persons to first receive the vaccine.

Tufton made the announcement on Tuesday as the House of Representatives reconvened its sittings, after the Christmas break Residents of infirmaries, Members of Parliament, Senators, parish council representatives and other senior members of the state, residents and staff of nursing homes, as well as inmates inside the island’s prisons and lock-ups, are also on the list.

Tufton shared that the first batch of vaccines to arrive in Jamaica in April will be enough to cover 5 per cent of the population rather than the previously stated one per cent.

This represents 292,000 doses – enough to vaccinate approximately 46,000 Jamaicans.

“The vaccination of the elderly and frontline workers who are most at risk is crucial to the overall efficacy of the programme.

Through the vaccination of the elderly, we will immediately cauterise the number of persons who have negative outcomes due to an infection of the COVID-19 and by vaccinating our frontline workers, greater levels of service delivery can be realised through the reduction of their risk profile based on infection," said Tufton.

“So there is a rationale. We go after those who are most vulnerable and the data points to that – persons who’ve died from COVID …80 per cent of the numbers actually are over 60 with comorbidities. So they’re the ones at greatest risk and of course our frontline workers,” Tufton added.