A push is coming from the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) for the Government to get tough on people who refuse to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.

Keith Duncan, president of the PSOJ, made the call yesterday noting, “We are in a crisis position at this point in time”, as he reflected on COVID-19 figures released by the Government yesterday. The figures correspond to test results for Sunday.

“We’ve seen the positivity rate today at 46 per cent,” he said in reference to the figures which showed 46.1 per cent of those tested returning a positive result. There were 513 new cases and 11 deaths. Seeing the numbers, the PSOJ, in a release, said it has been compelled to ponder the question of requiring the workforce to be vaccinated or subject themselves to regular testing.

However, ahead of that push, Duncan is calling for a stronger public education campaign encouraging people to take the vaccine.

“We don’t have the luxury of time and we need to marshal all forces. We need a national vaccination mobilising effort. People need to come off the fence now. It’s time that [the] private sector, unions, churches, the Government of Jamaica, civil society, everybody get on board and send [a message] with very little uncertainty, with great clarity that the nation has to get vaccinated,” Duncan continued.

He slammed what he called a campaign of misinformation and vaccine hesitancy among Jamaicans and asked others to get on board in the public education campaign, “not only making big statements like I am doing”, he said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

“We can do this, and then if we get to a place where we have further vaccine hesitancy, then we might have to think about stronger measures,” he added.

Asked what those stronger measures could be, he replied, “Stronger measures like have been contemplated in other countries and in other private sectors… either you vaccinate or you subject yourself to regular testing, because we must know what your status is.”

The proposal is similar to one that is being carried out in several countries. Across the world, the ease or freedom to travel, work, socialise, and engage in leisure activities is increasingly determined by one’s COVID-19 vaccination status. Late last month, US President Joe Biden ordered all federal workers and US government contractors to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or face restrictions, including being required to wear masks and subjecting themselves to repeated testing.

In several other countries the restrictions for unvaccinated individuals are increasing. Canada said on August 13 it will soon require all federal public servants and many other workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The vaccine mandate will also include air, train, and cruise ship travellers.

A decree approved by the Italian Government in March mandates that health workers, including pharmacists, get vaccinated. Those who refuse could be suspended without pay for the rest of the year.

In Jamaica, 411,198 doses of the vaccine, chiefly the one made by AstraZeneca, have already been administered. Of that number, 136,175 people have already had a second dose of the vaccine. At the same time, 274,026 have received a single dose and are awaiting the second shot to be fully vaccinated.

A total of 961 single-dose vaccines have been administered as well, mainly to athletes performing in the recently concluded Tokyo Olympic Games and the Concacaf Gold Cup competition which was held in the United States.

Jamaica has set aside approximately $5 billion to purchase over four million doses of the vaccine. The aim is to inoculate at least two million Jamaicans by March 2022.

In making the call for the Government to get tough, Duncan stopped just short of calling for a vaccine mandate, acknowledging that enough vaccines are not available right now to implement such a call. However, he conceded, “The world could get to that point.”

“In Jamaica, we could get there at some point in time, but that’s not where we want to go. We want people, of their own free will, to become vaccinated, but, if down the line we are not making the inroads that we should be making, and we’re [not] getting the benefits of having a vaccinated population, then down the road some hard decisions might have to be made, but that’s not where we are at this point in time,” he said.

The Government has consistently said it does not intend to mandate people to take the vaccine and has instead resorted to moral suasion, though there have been complaints, especially among members of the security forces, that subtle measures are being implemented to “force them” to take the vaccine.

For Duncan, getting the vaccine from vials into arms is twinned with removing restrictions on the society aimed at containing the spread of the novel coronavirus. He called on those who remain hesitant about taking the vaccine to look at the bigger picture, telling them it could save their own lives or that of their own families and reduce stress on the health system.

“It’s our hospitals that are getting overwhelmed, and when our hospitals get overwhelmed then we have to put tight restrictions on the economy, and it slows down our economic activity; jobs are lost, businesses have to close down as a result of reduced economic activity, and the only way out of this is through vaccination. So we have to get over the fear. Jamaicans have been taking vaccines for years.”

He said taking the vaccine is about “pushing Jamaica into a place where people can get employed or re-employed, where businesses can get back to work, because there’s a lot of suffering happening now”.

While Duncan called for those who refuse to be vaccinated to be subjected to regular testing, he was non-committal on who should pay for the tests. “That is what we have to work out now,” he said when asked directly about who would pay.

“In St Vincent, what they do, they say, we the Government will pay for the two first tests, then after that you are responsible. We gonna have to work that out now — who is responsible — because the vaccine is free, ennuh. If you don’t take the vaccination and then you end up in the hospital, what you doing up at the hospital? he said. “You are using up government services; you are slowing down the economy because you refuse to take the vaccine. If you take the vaccine there’s a very small chance you will get sick enough to go to the hospital.”

His colleague businessman John Mahfood, who recently took over the presidency of the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association was not as strident in making recommendations on the Government getting tougher on the unvaccinated. Mahfood said he has “no firm position” and indicated that he would follow the direction of the Administration.

“The Government is not mandating the vaccine, and we are not in a position to tell people to take the test in lieu of the vaccine,” he said before pointing out that testing is expensive and asking, “So who pays for it?”

Tests start from $7,000 in some cases and reach upwards of $20,000 or more in the private sector. In Government institutions, the test is free, but the wait time for results varies.

Mahfood pointed out that Jamaican law does not require, as a prerequisite, people to be vaccinated to maintain or get a job. However, several Jamaicans, especially those who employ people in their homes, have indicated on social media that those employees who refuse to take the vaccine have been dismissed.

When the matter was put to Duncan he said, “That’s an individual home decision. I can’t pronounce on that. In my home, I’ve encouraged those who work along with me to get vaccinated and they have. It’s a toughie, because you are at risk from an employee of yours who is in your space with your family with your children, who does not see vaccination as a way to go. What I find is that as soon as people see people close to them die from COVID, that is when they are very much encouraged and incentivised to get vaccinated. When they see the impact and people dead, that’s when they say, ‘OK, I am ready’.”

He continued, “I can’t pronounce on whether an employer of someone in their household should have someone unvaccinated in their workspace. Some people will do it and say, ‘Listen me, constantly wear your masks,’ some people would just not tolerate it. The variants that are out there now are dangerous; they are highly contagious and the viral load is very high. You don’t know when this will mutate, so you putting yourself at risk.”

Mahfood, however, said he believes more people will get vaccinated when it is made more convenient for them to do so. He called on the Government to ramp up the messaging to people, adding, “trying to reach the people on Twitter is not working”.

He pointed to recent surveys conducted amongst members of the private sector which indicated that 30 per cent of the workforce is willing to take the vaccine and another 33 per cent are indecisive and are still making their assessments to arrive at a decision.