Shun rumours! Avoid myths! Get vaccinated!

GUYANESE MUST SHUN RUMORS, AVOID MYTHS, AND GET VACCINATED said
Mr. Sean Welcome, Deputy Coordinator of the Health and Emergency Operation Centre
(HEOC).
“Its common knowledge that Guyanese have been very hesitant towards the vaccines for many
reasons and for me that is a travesty by itself because we need the protection,” Welcome said.
He decried the disinformation and misinformation coupled with politically-biased newspeak
swirling around the country unfortunately linked to the country’s COVID vaccine effort. These,
Welcome contended, are helping drive mounting skepticism among the populace.
“People were running after the Sputnik as almost everyone wanted it before the recent political
commentary. It just goes to show the power of what we say can have on people and now there
are significant hesitancy towards the vaccination,” Welcome observed.
The HEOC official noted that “even people who would have gotten their first dose are hesitant
and contemplating whether they should take their second dose, and for me, I think that would be
a poor decision not to take it. You already got the first dose there isn’t overwhelming
manifestation of adverse effects on persons,” the HEOC second-in-command said.
Lukewarmness about the vaccine is unhelpful to the national cause, he reminded.
“If we are going to get back to any sense of normalcy in this pandemic, we need to embrace the
measures…in their entirety, not only the emergency measures that are gazetted, but also
participating in the vaccination process” by getting inoculated, the senior HEOC counselled.
His advice is not empty rhetoric either.
“I am fully vaccinated; my wife is fully vaccinated (and) my mother is fully vaccinated. My
mother is closing in on her 70 and she took the Sputnik and nothing went wrong with her,
absolutely nothing,” Welcome disclosed.
According to him, his almost-septuagenarian mother is “diabetic, hypertensive and arthritic and
nothing has happened to her. She is currently in the USA enjoying her vacation. She travelled to

the USA being vaccinated by Sputnik and encountered no difficulty getting into the country. I
didn’t receive any calls to say that she is being challenged anywhere along the journey. She is
there enjoying her vacation.”
He said numerous other relatives are fully vaccinated with the Sputnik jab and have not
encountered any negative side effects. His comments came in the wake of the Government’s
resumption of its national inoculation programme Tuesday after receiving the Russian-
manufactured immunogen this week.
Welcome plans to be on the forefront advocating the use of the Sputnik V since he and his family
are grateful beneficiaries.
“I prefer to err on the side of caution and take the vaccine. So, I would encourage
everybody to take the vaccines,” Welcome advised.