A total of 99,887 students, out of a population of approximately 240,000, have received at least one dose of the Pfizer coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine, to date.

This was disclosed by Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Fayval Williams, during the sitting of the House of Representatives on November 9.

“We are still guided by the national average vaccination threshold of 65 per cent, meaning, as soon as the number of students who are fully vaccinated in our schools gets to 65 per cent, those students can begin to return to face-to-face classes,” Williams said.

“We will still have the other modalities online, audio/visual, learning kit available for those students whose parents have chosen to not let their children take the vaccination,” she added.

Cabinet, on November 8, approved the administration of first doses of the Pfizer vaccine for students in secondary schools.

Williams said the deputy chief education officer in charge of school operations is busy helping schools to ramp up so that students, age 12 to 18, can get vaccinated and get back to school as quickly as possible.

“We will have as many vaccination blitzes as we can in our schools with our school nurses, making it convenient for our students to get access to the vaccines. I implore our school leaders, our teachers, our administrators, all the staff at our schools if you have not already done so, to get vaccinated so that we can create ‘resilient corridors’ in our schools,” she urged.

“We have seen how the resilient corridors have worked well in the tourism sector, keeping people safe. Let’s get vaccinated. Let’s get back to life,” she stressed.