His Excellency the Governor Mr. John J. Rankin has said that all BVI residents will be offered both doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine by July 31st, in accordance with the UK’s intent to speed up the vaccination rollout.
Governor Rankin said “the UK has been leading the way on the rollout of vaccines and Overseas Territories are directly benefiting from this- being some of the first places in the world to begin mass vaccination programmes. The first delivery of vaccines arrived in BVI from the UK on 4 February, and the Virgin Islands’ vaccination programme began on the 11 February.”
“The UK remains committed to providing further doses of the vaccine as required as the local rollout programme proceeds. We hope therefore that everyone in BVI who wishes to be inoculated will have received both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine by or before the 31 July, when the entire UK population is expected to be vaccinated,” Governor Rankin later added.
The United Kingdom has so far procured 8000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, some of which was already administered to residents who choose to be immunized.
When questioned on how many of those vaccines were already administered, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ronald Georges during an exclusive interview via 284 Media’s February 23rd broadcast said “as of yesterday (February 22nd, the number is 1,493. We did as much as 500 yesterday. I’m expecting a similar amount today. So we’re definitely expecting the uptake and the delivery of the vaccine to speed up as time goes by. The team from the BVI Health Services and the management there are working really hard collaborating with us to make sure that the vaccine gets out and we see this week, the benefits of those efforts.”
Dr. Georges confirmed that the Ministry of Health is almost ready to commence the vaccination process for the wider public with additional vaccines set to arrive by the 2nd week of March.
The CMO said “right now the BVI Health Services authority is at the forefront of that effort and their staff are the ones who are vaccinating people through not just the community clinics but also some community locations. So that’s going to step up.”
“As we move on, we’re also going to involve the private sector so we’re putting the final touches on a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry and the private sector. With that memorandum of understanding, we’re expecting that there will be no charge, so they won’t be allowed to charge persons for the vaccine and they won’t be able to charge NHI. Essentially what we want to do here is ensure that there is as many opportunities or avenues open for persons to become vaccinated and the barrier or prices is completely removed,” he later added.
The British government has announced that every adult in the U.K. will be offered a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine by the end of July, one month earlier than initially planned. Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the accelerated target will allow vulnerable people to be protected “sooner,” which should help relax the lifting of lockdown restrictions across the country.
