Rt Hon Dr Douglas Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition and the Labour Party and Larry Vaughn, 1st VP of the SKNTL Union spoke recently at a Town Hall meeting in Newton Ground Village in solidarity with workers on the Vaccination issue.
Dr Douglas, a Physician of many years experience, fielded a lot of questions on the Covid-19 Vaccination program after addressing Residents of Constituency 6. He again reaffirmed his support of vaccinations, outlining the historical importance of Vaccinations generally in combatting contagious diseases and specifically the corona virus Covid-19 disease.
Dr Douglas was again critical of the government for politicising the management of the pandemic from the very beginning, in excluding the Opposition as a stakeholder. He told the attentive audience that the vaccination roll out program was ill-conceived as it did not provide citizens with the appropriate awareness and education exercises to combat the misinformation that is readily peddled in the social media. He stressed that the population, properly educated, will make the right informed decision to take the vaccine, but again emphasised that citizens and residents must exercise their right of choice of the vaccines available, and to take or not take it.
He joined with the SKNTLU Executive, who had spoken earlier, in expressing the view that attempts at forced and mandatory vaccination of private sector employees and public servants by employers and Government respectively, must be strongly condemned and resisted by the people and relevant institutions.