KINGSTON, Jamaica — Government is being urged to utilise the broadest range of Jamaican skills and established professionals to create appropriate messaging to achieve a higher level of buy-in and support for the vaccination programme and protocols.

The call is being made by the newly-formed COVID Action Group (CAG), the convenor of which is noted attorney-at-law, KD Knight.

In a release, Knight said the current plan is not likely to succeed if politicians are left to carry the message on this national issue.

“That’s our reality, and it’s a reality that says a significant number of Jamaicans are not going to buy in,” Knight said in response to the government’s plan to push for greater community support.

He said the minister of health’s community approach could not rely on councillors for vaccination messaging when many are unpopular, obscure and unknown to their electors.

Knight proposed that the popularity of Jamaican athletes and entertainers and neutral persons with a natural following should be tapped to carry the message for vaccination. In addition, he suggested that radio stations, shopping centres, tax offices and transport centres, among other commercial outlets, be inundated with positive messaging on the efficacy of the vaccines.

Knight said his advocacy group strongly believes that the fight against the coronavirus was too important to be left in great part to the health minister and his Opposition counterpart.

In addition to those voices, he said it needed the goodwill and voices of a wide range of Jamaicans, as the resurgence of the deadly disease is now threatening Jamaicans at perhaps the highest level since the pandemic.