KINGSTOWN, St Vincent (CMC) – Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves is urging nationals to get vaccinated against the coronavirus (COVID-19), stating that getting infected “is likely to not be as severe as if you don’t take the vaccine”.

A fully vaccinated Gonsalves, who disclosed that he had contracted the virus that has killed and infected millions of people worldwide, said he wanted to speak from his own experience, both to be careful and also to take the vaccine

“For those who say, ‘Well Ralph take the vaccine and boosters and still get COVID’, well, the vaccine was never 100 per cent foolproof. Nobody ever said that. What they said is that it decreases the risk of the transmission and also if you get it, you’re not likely to get it as terrible as if you didn’t take the vaccine. The evidence is there in abundance,” the 75-year-old Gonsalves told a radio programme.

He said he was also urging the public, including teachers dismissed over their failure to take the jab, to get vaccinated and that anyone could contract the virus that has killed 110 people there and infected 8,956 others since March 2020.

“I am testimony to that,” said Gonsalves, who has said that he has taken five COVID-19 shots in just over a year.

“Secondly, take the vaccine because when you have the vaccine, if you get COVID, the effect is likely to not be as severe as if you don’t take the vaccine,” he added.

Gonsalves, among the latest Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders to have contracted the virus, said that “other than a little sniffle” he did not have any of the other complaints normally associated with COVID including problems “with my taste buds and so on and so on”.

Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, on Monday announced that she has also contracted the virus.

READ: Barbados Prime Minister Mottley tests positive for COVID-19

Prime Minister Gonsalves said as the school term finishes, teachers who refused to take a COVID-19 and were dismissed should get vaccinated to allow them to return to the classroom.

“How you going to go and talk to people’s children during the COVID pandemic still without being vaccinated? Come on! Come on! Let’s be reasonable,” Gonsalves said, adding that he had been pleading about this.

“And the funny thing is, they are saying I am pig-headed and arrogant but I am concerned about the safety of the children, the health and safety. You see, some people can be so self-opinionated and only about themselves and don’t think broadly about our society,” he said.

“And these are questions which the vast majority of people have answered as social individuals, not as the atomised individuals, not as individuals by themselves. You’re part of a society. So, I am pleading again, please take the vaccine and specifically here now, those teachers or anybody else … the frontlines categories,” Gonsalves said.

The Office of the Prime Minister has said that Gonsalves will work from home until Monday.