Guyana mulls compulsory COVID vaccination

THE GUYANESE GOVERNMENT IS MULLING COMPULSORY COVID-19 VACCINATION
for the population to help stem the spread of the deadly virus according to a Department of Public
Information (DPI) report Wednesday.
DPI cited a very concerned Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, as scanning the global stage to monitor
other countries’ response to the deadly pandemic given renewed life by the highly-contagious Delta
variant.

Hospitalisations and deaths have surged once again around the world, forcing some countries to
reintroduce the recently-relaxed protocols of mask wearing, hand-washing and sanitizing and physical
distancing after daily data were confirmed dips in figures.
Guyana. Anthony informed DPI, is now “paying close attention to the evolution of COVID-19 in order to
ensure it adequately adjusts its vaccination response,” Anthony said in DPI’s Wednesday report circulated
to the media.
Already, some private sector companies are demanding mandatory vaccination among their staff. Paying
attention to global trends will help the Government explore “other strategies to combat vaccine
hesitancy,” among Guyanese, Anthony reasoned during his COVID-19 update Wednesday.
“Here, there’s a lot of the private sector entities that would want to make their work environment safe and
they’re taking those precautions. They’re giving their employees the option (to) go get the vaccine or you
have to be tested on a regular basis for them to verify that the person is not infected with Covid,” DPI said
quoting the minister.

“You got to understand that that’s …one way of… encouraging a safe environment. We [the
Government] are looking at what is evolving from an epidemiological point of view, and we will take all
the necessary steps to ensure that people are protected,” DPI said.
Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron his government was making it mandatory for
healthcare workers in hospitals and a number of other establishments to be vaccinated. Some 700,000
will be directly affected.
Macron’s decision means that the French-speaking nation was joining more than a dozen other with
the imposition on their populations at some level
Australia, Britain, Canada, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia,
and Turkmenistan are among those countries with the stipulation,