TRELAWNY, Jamaica — Mayor of Falmouth and Chairman of the Trelawny Municipal Corporation (TMC), Councillor C Junior Gager, has charged councillors in the municipality to take the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and establish the precedence for other residents of the parish. 

Gager, who was speaking at Thursday’s monthly meeting of the TMC, also mandated the councillors to urge influential leaders in their communities to take the vaccine as a public example for other residents.

“I urge you fellow councillors and members of staff of the Trelawny Municipal Corporation to lead by example and take the vaccine,” Gager appealed. 

“I want you to also influence community leaders including principals, members of the clergy…leaders in the public and private sectors overall, to take the shots so that they can influence members of the public.”

He was speaking a day after the islandwide roll-out of the vaccination programme launched exactly one year after the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on the island.

Gager, his deputy, Donovan White, Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) councillor for the Duncans Division; Dunstan Harper, the JLP councillor for the Sherwood Division and other members of the TMC staff were in attendance at the Falmouth Health Centre where they received initial jabs.

“I am here today (yesterday) with other councillors and staff members of the Trelawny Municipal Corporation to be vaccinated,” the Falmouth mayor stated.

He revealed that operations at a department at the municipality which had to be lock down after cases of COVID were detected there, have now returned to normality.

Meanwhile, at the start of this week, the recently constructed 36-bed field hospital for COVID patients was opened on the grounds of the Falmouth Public General Hospital.

Gager, who welcomed the new facility, however, argued that if residents fail to conform to the COVID protocols or refuse to take up their vaccine, the disease will continue to spike and the new field hospital will be overrun with patients.

“The vaccines are here and they don’t have unlimited shelf life, they will expire over time. So I am urging all residents of this parish, please get inoculated before the doses spoil,” Gager appealed.