50% of Teachers Vaccinated!

Francis Fonseca

Minister of Education Francis Fonseca has called on teachers to take the COVID-19 vaccine.  According to Fonseca, only a little over fifty percent of the educators have taken the first dose. He appealed to teachers to take the vaccine and also made a special call to the president of the B.N.T.U., Senator Elena Smith as she is yet to get the jab.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“The last report I got from the Ministry of Health which was just yesterday in Cabinet, I think he said about fifty-two percent of teachers had been vaccinated, we would love that to be much higher but it’s a step in the right direction, just a few weeks ago it was around thirty percent so we’ve seen an increase of about twenty percent over the past month and we hope that that continues and that by the time August rolls around we’ll be over seventy, close to eighty percent or more. It’s not a requirement for teachers to be vaccinated to return to school but certainly we would much prefer our teachers all get vaccinated, we think it’s in their best interest, it’s in the best interest of their students and communities so we are doing everything possible to make it easier for teachers to get vaccinated. Where we have more than ten teachers in a school that want to get vaccinated, we talked to the Ministry of Health and they send a mobile unit to vaccinate them so that has helped as well, so we need to find even more creative ways of ensuring that our teachers get vaccinated. I tease my friend, the President of the BNTU, Senator Elena, I tease her, you know she’s publicly said she’s afraid of needles. I tease her that she needs to overcome her fear and lead by example. I’m still hoping that she takes it on and gets the vaccine. I hope so, i think it’s very important for teachers to understand and appreciate that it’s very safe and the vaccine is effective, very important – it’s very effective.”