Karisparu Toshao to residents, ‘GET VACCINATED’

CANDACE EVANS, TOSHAO OF KARISPARU, POTARO/SIPARUNI (REGION
EIGHT) took the moral high ground when she took the covid jab. And from that lofty position
she challenged her constituents with a simple message that can be summarized in two words.
‘Your turn’ or ‘get vaccinated’.
“Today, after [the visit] doctors talked to us about the vaccination. I decided to take the Johnson
and Johnson vaccine. I made up my mind because I don’t want to get the virus and get sick and
end up in ICU. I rather take the vaccine and fight the virus… and I would encourage my people
at Karisparu to get fully vaccinated,” Evans said at a recently-concluded Toshaos’ Conference in
Mahdia.
Evans reminded Region Eight residents, that “it would be very difficult doing business and
visiting important offices without this blue [vaccine] card, you cannot access any government
building without it.”

Evans was referring to the ongoing brouhaha stirred by the government’s controversial Gazetted
Order which has outlawed unvaccinated Guyanese from accessing government buildings for
services including old-age pension or for life-saving medicines or medical treatment.
The Karisparu Toshao plans travelling the mineral-rich region to educate residents about the
highly transmissible and deadly virus, and the benefits of being inoculated.
“I would encourage people to take the vaccine. I would encourage people to take the same
decision as I did,” she said.
Meanwhile, health minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, disclosed that the single-dose Johnson and
Johnson inoculant will be given almost exclusively to person living in the hinterland areas.

“So, we are going to send those vaccines out to those hard-to-reach communities across the
hinterland. And I think that’s going to help us to reach a lot of people, to be able to expand the
coverage,” minister Anthony said.
Recent figures released by the health ministry show some 66 per cent of Guyana’s population
has taken the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 34.4 per cent has been fully vaccinated.
It also shows 27 percent of children ages 12 to 17 have also been administered their first dose of
the Pfizer vaccine.
Since the first death of COVID 19 in March 2020, there have been over 730 deaths in Guyana
and 4.5 million worldwide.
There are currently some 3,820 active cases of infectious in the 10 regions of the country.