JAMAICAN Grammy Award-winning recording artiste Shaggy has brushed aside conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines and says he’s ready to take the jab when it becomes available in the island.

“Mi deh a di front a the line,” Shaggy told the Jamaica Observer last Thursday.

“This isn’t di first vaccine we’ve taken; we’ve taken many vaccines in our lives. How many years now we a see Chinese and [other] Asian people a walk roun’ wid mask pan dem face; SARS has been around for a long time. COVID is a part of SARS,” he argued.

The platinum-selling artiste, known as much for his hit records as his philanthropy — especially efforts to improve the lives of children — was referring to the fact that COVID-19 and SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) are caused by coronaviruses.

The virus that causes SARS is referred to as SARS-CoV, while that which causes COVID-19 is known as SARS-CoV-2.

SARS was first identified in November 2002 during an outbreak in China. The viral respiratory illness spread to more than 24 countries infecting just over 8,000 people, with some 774 deaths, according to World Health Organization data.

Scientists report that after the SARS outbreak it took four months before the coronavirus genome sequence became available to develop antigens for animal and cell culture trials. However, by December 2004 when the first human trial of a possible vaccine for SARS was conducted in Beijing, the epidemic was over. That resulted in priority being given to research into other diseases.

“Scientists have been working on vaccines for the longest time,” Shaggy insisted, in an obvious counter to scepticism about the speed with which the two most prominent COVID-19 shots have been developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in collaboration with its German partner BioNTech, and British pharma company Moderna, since the novel coronavirus outbreak started in November last year.

“They didn’t just come up with a vaccine in a year. This has been in production for the longest time – they knew it was coming,” he said.

“Mi seh, line mi up [for the vaccine],” he added, arguing that fears about harm to people’s health from the vaccine make little sense.

“This is about money; this is about business. There’s too much money being lost right now with COVID. Dem want to fix it. It’s not good business for them to make people die,” he said.

He also rubbished conspiracy theories that the coronavirus was artificially created and that any treatment for the virus was designed to track people.

“All dem things about chip inna yuh, we’re already chipped — it’s called a cellphone,” he said, a reference to apps available to smartphone users that share location data.

“Come on man, let’s not buy into conspiracy theories,” urged Shaggy.

The award-winning artiste, real name Orville Burrell, joins Prime Minister Andrew Holness and former prime ministers Bruce Golding and P J Patterson, who have already indicated that they are ready to take the vaccine.

Several other Jamaicans have indicated that they will not take the jab.

When the Observer conducted a random survey in the Corporate Area recently, a lack of information, general distrust of vaccines and wide use of traditional medicine emerged as the predominant sentiments.

“Nobody in my community nuh have COVID, and I don’t have COVID, so I don’t need fi take the vaccine. I don’t know what them put in the vaccine, if it is something that could kill mi,” said Joseph Frater.

Paulette Edwards had similar concerns.

“Suppose it make you sick more than make you better. We don’t know. The people in America not taking the vaccine, so why we in Jamaica must take it? I trust God, I’m a Christian. I don’t like the whole vaccine idea,” Edwards said.

Other responders voiced their trust in herbal medicine to ward off illnesses, including COVID-19.

“I am already protecting myself from COVID, so I don’t need the vaccine. I make sure drink my cerasee bush and other herbal medicine — that is what we need to protect ourselves, not no vaccine. I don’t trust what they put in it, and we don’t know the side effect it can have,” said Vertran Bailey.