How can we improve the vaccination role out process

The process to vaccinate the Jamaican population has ran into the very problems that many before us has ran into and appears to be disorganized in many respects. We must therefore make every effort to improve the process before the next sets of vaccines come in and be prepared to fine tune this as more and more people show up to be vaccinated.

I note the Dr Tufton has already indicated that a new online platform is to be used to manage the process from appointment to the delivery of the service as well act a audit tool to account for all the vaccines. To be honest this is good and I am not really too concerned about this part of the process, my interest is more about what takes place on the ground and that is what I will be speaking to.

I will make a few assumptions which I will then use as the basis of my suggestions on how to improve the delivery system.

1. Appointment in online platform will be for very specific vaccination site either one close to place of work or home
2. Specific time will be allotted in the system based on the following
   • Number of vaccination stations at each specific site
   • Time it takes to go through the entire process inclusive of the period the person must wait to check for adverse reaction
   • Throughput time per patient( see above)
   • Number of vaccines that can be reasonably administered based on throughput time and number of hrs the site remains open

3. Backup list assuming at 10 – 20% of those persons will either not show up at all or will show up late .

The Process

Once an appointment has been made and confirmed , the person will be sent a confirmation email with the following information.

a. Appointment time

b. Appointment location

c. What to take to confirm their identity

d. A note to say you will need to arrive at least 15 min before your appointment time

e. Information to say, if you come later than 60min after your appointment time you will not be accommodate and your appointment will be cancelled. You will therefore need to book a new date and time for another appointment

On Site

Persons who do not have an appointment should NOT be accommodated for a vaccine, however their information should be taken, logged and an appointment made in the system at that point in time. Those persons should then be given the same information provided to those online in printed format, so they are made aware of what is to be expected.

It therefore goes without sayin that the only people who will be vaccinated would be those who

1. Had and appointment on that day and at that location
2. Those who turned up on time for their vaccination

End of Day

One hour before the end of the day and based on how may doses are still available to be delivered , the site coordinator should contact those on the back up list, which should be people living in close proximity to the site and can get their within 15 to 20 minutes after being contacted

Should some of these people don’t show up either:

1. Close to the expiration of the vaccine
2. or the close of the center

Then and only then should the few doses left, be offered to those on site who are not part of the priority groups but have been their assisting with the vaccination process. ( I mean workers who are not in the various priority groups)

Under no circumstance should walk in persons be accommodated . The only people who can be accommodated at this stage are those who had a previous appointment , were rebooked but decided to wait until end of day to just incase a does become available.

The above in my mind can go a far way in bringing order and transparency to the system.

Bless

PNP covid-19 messaging is disjointed ,confusing and dangerous

The opposition PNP has demonstrated in no uncertain terms, that had it been in office when the pandemic struck, we would have been in deep trouble as the party messaging on the virus has been confusing at best and dangerous at worst.

At the start of the outbreak, the PNP castigated the government for taking too long to close the border and then asserted that, those delays resulted in the virus gaining access to the country.

A few weeks later the PNP team of Dr Morais Guy, Dr Shane Alexis, Dr Dayton Campbell and Dr DeLa Haye and blasted the government for taking too long to reopen the borders as cases of covid began to surge in the country. This was being done while the government was working on its covid re-entry strategies to ensure that those who are coming in can be tested and housed at government facilities if positive.

At every step of the pandemic the PNP has been uncooperative and has sought to provide misinformation to the population, which has casued the government to spend valueable time fighting fake news that could have otherwise been spent fighting the virus.

In one of its many press conference Dr Shane Alexis noted ” The government is wicked and unconscionable as it has locked covid in and locked Jamaicans out” and demanded that all Jamaicans overseas must be allowed in as its their constitutional rights.

When the government called election for September 3, 2020 the opposition blasted the government for being reckless and pointing out that under the constitution election was not due until Feb 2021 and it was callous of the government to have been calling an election in the middle of a pandemic with case count rising.

One PNP advisor Dr Canute Thompson blasted the government saying the Prime Minister Andrew Holness was not a real leader as a real leader would not do such a thing to its residents.

Below is a graph of the case count when the election was actually called and held along with position of case count when the PNP and many of its experts said, the elections should have been called. Clearly the move by Andrew Holness to call the elections when he did was pure genius

The PNP continued to be critical of every single move made the government while at the same time refusing to tell the country in its almost weekly process conferences to follow the MOH covid protocols , this led many people to no longer trust the messaging by the government and thus resorted to conspiracy theories .

Now getting much traction the PNP and its surrogates in the media accused the government of pure PR and then launched a vicious assault on the marketing company Market Me which was by then been coordinating the Jamaica moves campaign and helping the communication effort as we battled fake news, the PNP and covid.

The assaults on a Jamaica home grown company was one of the worst I have ever witnessed and at the end of the day there was no evidence to suggest the company had done anything wrong. What the PNP was however able to successfully accomplish, was to kill the communication messaging from the government , thus allowing its plants to resume the fake news spread.

The slowdown in the communication process resulted in calls being made for the government to improve its public education and communication strategy to stop the spread of fake news, which was actually the intent of the PNP when it decided to go after Market me.

Now fast forward to Feb 2021 when the PNP’s Dr Morais Guy and its leader Mark Golding accused the government of being derelict by virtue of it allowing Barbados to receive and having its citizen vaccinated (Feb 10, 20212)before we got even one vial.

The opposition PNP said the government was at the back of the line by virtue of failed diplomacy and for its refusal to accept a vaccine that had not yet been approved by the WHO. The PNP told Jamaicans that story, who then repeated the narrative that, we were at the back of the line because the government had chosen to follow the law vs breaking the very law designed to ensure that Jamaicans at no point in time would ever accept drugs that had not been approved by a world governing body.

The PNP continued it assault on the government accusing it of failing to secure much need vaccines via the Covax platform as well as on the world market at a time when other countries around the world had received and started to inoculate its people. Incidentally the first shipment of vaccines under the Covax facility was delivered to Ghana on Feb 24, just 8 days after the vaccine was approved by the WHO on Feb 15, 2021

The PNP kept up its assault on the country by asserting that members of the security forces ( JDF) who by virtue of their physicals make up and training should not be vaccinated as even if they became sick they are likely to recover faster and persons 60 years and over.

Anyone who lives in Jamaica and who has even a basic understanding of the role the JDF plays in Jamaica, knows they are front line in the crime fight. We would have seen on March 5, 2021 how a joint miltioary patrol broke up a vicious gang operating in the bedward gardens comminuty of August town.

The PNP in seeking to provide a basis for its objections asserted that, according to WHO and CDC guidelines the army was not considered front line and this the government was NOT following the guidelines of these established health authorities.

Now lets pause for a second, this was the same PNP who less than a month ago blasted the government for “waiting” on approval from the WHO to secure the Astra Zeneca vaccine for the people of this country.

The move to object the JDF securing vaccines on the face of its could be seen to be downright lack of proper judgment by the PNP but let’s ask , was there a more sinister move by the PNP. Let’s face it, we are not only fighting covid , but we are in a fight with criminals as well and the JDF plays a very important support role in this fight.

I am hoping that the PNP is not hoping that by delaying the inoculation of the JDF, the nations security apparatus will be weakened which will then reduce of ability to facedown criminals thus giving the PNP another talking point about the government crime fighting strategies are not working, I pray God I am wrong on this count.

Long piece I know but I had to write out my thoughts today.

Bless

Juliet Cuthbert’s positive covid test is cause for concern

There has been intense debate in the last few days in Jamaica about who ought to receive the vaccine, with people drawing on CDC/WHO guidelines, none of which has listed politicians in any group to receive the vaccine.

Juliet Cuthbert is a key player in the vaccination roll out and with her being out of commission now, this is bound to have a negative impact on the roll out of the vaccination program. Does CDC provides a guide in how this must be handled.

Of course they would not, the guide is to assist the process, but each country must tailor the plan to the country in question based on the needs of that country.

The roll of the political representatives in Jamaica is very different from that in the USA or even the UK and the roles that many of these folks play, places them in unique position where they are not only interacting with many people on a daily basis , but are also key in the fight against the virus.

Its rather unfortunate that members of the media as well as the PNP has moved to create a narrative that only serve to reinforce the mistrust in the society of any government initiative, while at the same time calling on people to stop spreading conspiracy theories which could harm the country covid efforts.

The government must ensure the vaccination plans laid out are executed as per the plan and hold those tasked with the responsibility of actually executing the process to account .

Will there be issues, I would be shocked in there aren’t any given what has occurred all over the world, but let’s not continue to use those teething pains to try and rip up the efforts of those who are actually out their trying to get things done. Its always very easy to criticize, but its much harder to actually get things done like clock work.

BTW if you keep looking for problems, you will find plenty, you will be so good at it that you will even begin to find problems that do not even exist.

Bless

PNP stirring vaccine confusion, but to what end ?

Mark Golding the PNP leader and Dr Morais Guy, the opposition spokesman on health, came out swinging against the decision of the government to vaccinate members of the JDF.

Both gentlemen referred to WHO and CDC guidelines on vaccination, while choosing to ignore the local realities that allows for modification of those guidelines .

I will use this forum to not only expose the lies of the PNP but to also show they are either not paying attention or has deliberately set out to misinform the nation.

The government of Jamaica in January of this year presented what it call the Interim vaccination plan to the parliament here is the cover page

In that interim plan that was presented Dr Guy and Mark Golding were all present and sat through the presentation and here were a few points taken from that plan. Notice the JDF members were included in that plan( this is not in priority order listing)

On March 2 the plan was further revised and made bit more granular to include the following , which gives actual numbers

What do you notice here, do you recognize that the the JDF and JCF were ahead of the elderly in the priority listing ( March for JDF/JCF vs April ).

The above information was presented to the nation a full week before the arrival of the vaccine and at least 2 weeks ago, yet despite having this information both Dr Guy and Mark Golding appears to have had no issues with the priority order, this was never a secret.

We now notice that as soon as the process has begun, rather than seeking to lend support to the effort the PNP has sought to confuse the public and sought to sow seeds of mistrust amongst the population, and we are left scratching our heads to figure out what is the PNP end game.

Are we to believe that the PNP had never seen the covid roll out plan, that was presented two weeks ago, as certainly as our loyal opposition that simply cannot be the case.

One therefore has to assume, that the PNP did see the plan, agreed with the plan, but is now seeking to deliberately make an attempt to sabotage the roll out plan, hoping to gain some political mileage.

I hope I am wrong, but when it comes unto the workings of the PNP and am hardly ever wrong.

The public therefore needs an explanation from the PNP why they are now opposed the plan which was presented on March 2, 2021.

Bless