The COVID-19 vaccines are arriving thick and fast — courtesy of international donors. Soon, no one who wants a vaccine will be denied.

Last Friday, Jamaica passed the 500,000-vaccinated mark and the target of 700,000 by the end of September is in sight.

This cannot happen too soon as health-care workers are frustrated and exhausted. Nurses at the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital shared on Dionne Jackson-Miller’s All Angles programme that sometimes they cannot help crying as they are stretched to the limit by the deluge of COVID-19 patients and saddenned by the death of some despite their valiant efforts. The clinical coordinator for the Cornwall Regional Hospital Dr Delroy Fray has stated that none of the COVID-19 patients in the western Jamaica hospital have been vaccinated.

Malicious anti-vaxxers continue to share fake news on various social media platforms, even twisting the content of straightforward reporting. In an interview with Emily Shields, K D Knight related that although he and his late wife Dr Shirley Knight had gone to the vaccination centre together, she postponed taking the vaccine due to a medical concern. Dr Knight subsequently contracted COVID-19 and sadly passed away the day after the couple’s 54th wedding anniversary. Incredibly, a false report that Dr Knight had been vaccinated began circulating to the point that the interview had to be played on a newscast to assure the public that this was not true.

It is a comfort to know that many Jamaicans are looking forward to taking the vaccine, and that with the rise in hospitalisations and deaths, vaccine hesitancy seems to be waning. Dr Melody Ennis hosted an excellent virtual townhall on the vaccine last week, and a repeat may be required for those health-care workers and teachers who are still vaccine-hesitant.

COVID-19 BOOSTERS BEING CONSIDERED

Dr Eve Palomino-Lue has stated that people like her, who have had renal and other transplants, are immunocompromised and may require COVID-19 booster shots for sufficient antibody response. Others, such as people with rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, HIV, and those being treated with chemotherapymay, may not be creating enough antibodies as they are taking immunosuppressant drugs.

Dr Palomino-Lue is making an appeal for these people to receive booster shots, and be made aware of this issue so that they can take every possible precaution, even if they have already received the two doses of the vaccine.

We understand that her appeal is being considered by the Ministry of Health and Wellness, and for the sake of the immunocompromised individuals, many of whom are seniors, we hope that a third shot will be made available.

CODING AND ROBOTICS

We have always regarded the Mona GeoInformatics Institute (MGI) led by Dr Parris Lyew-Ayee as a digital powerhouse, but what is even more impressive is their enthusiasm in opening the digital world to children.

The gaming technology company IGT recently brought MGI on board to conduct tech camps at homes and centres in the Caribbean where they operate their After School Advantage Centres. From August 9 to 19, students in Barbados, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Maarten, and Trinidad and Tobago were introduced to HTML, JavaScript, and CSS projects, along with group robotics activities at the camp. MGI tutors, led by Kaodi McGaw and Hugh Billings, guided the enthusiastic youngsters, and at their graduation we were treated to creative webpages.

Jamaica’s students hailed from Sunbeam Children’s Home; Spring Village Development Foundation and Training Institute; SOS Children’s Village — Stony Hill; Mustard Seed Communities — Jerusalem and Mary’s Child; and the Women’s Centre Jamaica Foundation centres in Mandeville and Savanna-la-Mar.

ALPHA APPOINTS BANDMASTER

The Sisters of Mercy of Jamaica have announced that music educator Gay Magnus has been appointed bandmaster at the Alpha School of Music (ASOM) in Kingston. Preparing to welcome its first cohort of students in the associate degree programme for music performance, the Alpha School of Music is Jamaica’s only tertiary programme focused on ensemble performance. As ASOM’s first bandmaster, Magnus will be leading the innovative music curriculum as it expands to offer its renowned vocational training in music and entertainment to a national audience of young men 16 to 25 years old.

With more than 15 years of experience lecturing and directing ensembles at the university level, including as lecturer at The University of the West Indies (UWI) and head of percussion at the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts, Gay Magnus brings an array of music education and band performance skills to the bandmaster position.

A trained pianist who switched to percussion and now focuses on steel pan, Magnus received a teaching certificate from the UWI, Mona campus, and completed her first degree in music performance at the UWI’s St Augustine campus (with first-class honours) and a master’s in music performance from Northern Illinois University in the United States. For more information about the Alpha School of Music’s associate degree please visit www.alphamusicja.com.

SENIORS CELEBRATE JAMAICA

Where can you find judges, psychologists, public relations gurus, medical doctors, potters, dancers, and poets on the same stage? Only at a Caribbean Community of Retired Persons (CCRP) Virtual Concert, where we donned our black, green, and gold Jamaican colours to soak up the amazing and hidden talents of some of Jamaica’s leading lights, expertly guided by emcee Charmaine Harrison and co-hosts Corrine Stewartson and Debbie Cargill.

Last Wednesday we enjoyed songs from Barbara Hylton, retired Justice Roy Anderson (who was celebrating his 80th birthday), Winston Sherwood, and DiMario McDowell; renditions on the saxophone and Miss Lou’s poetry from Rosemarie Voordouw; and presentations of original poems by retired Senior Parish Court Judge Lyle Armstrong and Dr Winsome Miller-Rowe; while Dr Owen James coaxed beautiful Jamaican melodies such as Redemption Song and Island in the Sun from his harmonica.

We paid rapt attention to the thought-provoking poems presented by Ambassador Aloun Assamba and Berl Francis, and laughed with Doris Halstead as she dramatised Valerie Bloom’s Recommendation. Janet Crick had us on the edge of our seats with a “duppy story” from Robert Lalah’s book, and Enid Bissember got us grooving as she danced in a ‘floating’ gown. With her bright smile and cool moves, Dr Lilieth Nelson took us down Festival memory lane featuring Toots and the Maytals, Stanley and the Turbines, and Roy Rayon. We also enjoyed a video of Vilya Thomas’s unique pottery.

FAREWELL, LADY DAPHNE

We have lost church sister Daphne King, whose stewardship as a choir member and Eucharistic minister at Stella Maris Roman Catholic Church inspired her fellow congregants. Ninety-seven-year-old Daphne served faithfully up to a few years ago and passed away peacefully earlier this month.

Daphne was a trailblazing executive at British West Indian Airlines, British Overseas Airways Corporation, and Air Jamaica. She and her late husband Noel raised four successful children of whom she was extremely proud. Son Paddy King recalls that his mother moved up the corporate ladder in the airline industry by dint of hard work. “We miss her terribly, but we feel very blessed to have had the perfect mother,” he says.

Deepest sympathy to her children Garth, Paddy, Damien, Sharon; grandchildren; and great- grandchildren. May the beautiful soul of Daphne King rest in peace.

www.lowrie-chin.blogspot.com