Mark Golding has reiterated the Opposition’s disapproval of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination and decried what he said were injustices in the application of penalties for breaches of the Disaster Risk Management Act.

As Opposition spokespersons picked apart the Government’s approach to the COVID-19 crisis across sectors during a press conference at the office of the opposition leader in St Andrew yesterday, Golding said with the majority of Jamaicans against mandatory vaccinations, any such policy was neither right nor practical.

“With over 70 per cent of the population polling as being against mandatory vaccination, we neither think it practical nor right to coerce people to be vaccinated who do not believe it is the right thing to do. We strongly believe that vaccination is the right thing to do, [but] we believe that the Government should consider incentivising vaccination, not through a bureaucratic process like the CARE programme with online application and failed delivery of the benefit,” the opposition leader argued.

He said, instead, the Government should offer immediate benefits such as a voucher, which can assist people with food purchases. Golding pointed to the risk-based approach taken by the various employer groups and the joint trade union confederation to iron out policies for the workplace in relation to vaccination.

Furthermore, he said people should not be forced, in the absence of any form of protection or support, in the event of an adverse reaction to the vaccine.

“There is no indemnification offered by the Government or the manufacturers of the vaccine. How are you going to mandate somebody that they must take a vaccine if you’re not prepared to stand behind them if they get sick or otherwise suffer an adverse reaction? I don’t see that as possible,” Golding insisted.

During a tour of vaccination sites in Clarendon near the weekend, Prime Minister Andrew Holness had announced that new vaccination policies are to be implemented after the Government completes its public education campaign.

“We will respect people’s rights and the process before we do anything, but we can’t continue like this for much longer; our children must go back to school. They have suffered the most, and so there will come a time when we will have to insist upon persons taking the vaccines,” he said.

Warning that, if Jamaicans refuse vaccination, the country will not return to normal, Holness charged that “Those who don’t take the vaccine remain the host population for the reproduction and mutation of the virus. The consequence of this is that the people who would have taken the vaccine will face the potential of being infected by a mutated version of the virus for which the original vaccine they took would not be as effective.”

He said countries with constitutions similar to Jamaica’s have implemented measures to differentiate between those who are vaccinated and those who are unvaccinated.

Responding to the announcement, Jamaicans on various social media platforms voiced strong opinions about any pending decision for a vaccine mandate. Some argued that any draconian policy with laws that are unenforceable would go the way of other policies and laws, which have not achieved their purpose, and that this approach could very well see the country failing to meet its target of two million people fully vaccinated by March 2022, just five months away.

A little over 10 per cent of the population is now fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Hesitation and resistance remain a problem, with figures disclosed by the health ministry last week revealing that the highest proportion of vaccinated people fall in the 70-79 age group. Still, 61 per cent of that cohort remain unvaccinated, according to the ministry. It said 83 per cent of people in the 20-29 age group are unvaccinated; 80.6 per cent in the 30-39 age group; 75 per cent in the 40-49 age group; 69.5 in the 50-59 age group; and 81.6 per cent in the 12-19 age group.