The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I’m reaching out to you hoping that light can be shed on the issue of the difficulty that some face getting a vaccine. I have a handful of employees that I have finally convinced to get themselves and their children of age vaccinated. Upon getting there, one was turned away because he wasn’t the parent that signed their child up for the vaccine, although he is the father of the chid. The mother that signed the child up was working and unable to bring the child at the time of the appointment. What sense does this make?!

In another case an employee was turned away because he presented his foreign passport (the vax.gov.bs website states government ID) the man had to leave to go get his NIB card. Again, what sense does this make?! It has been very difficult to convince the men to get vaccinated and not until we lost our lead man and good friend to COVID, 12 days after he became infected, did they finally agree that it was the right thing to do. I’m attaching a photo of the website statement that just a government ID is necessary. I’ve heard the excuse for why the father was turned away and it doesn’t hold water, the volunteer should have considered the real life circumstances and made the decision that is best for everyone.

At this time everyone that wants a vaccine should be given one, nobody benefits by turning someone away. That person had to likely take time off from work and just as it was difficult for me to convince my employees, there are many others that are nervous and may not bother to return. It is possible that one person turned away could lead to future infections and unnecessary deaths. Why isn’t common sense being used in this process? Now is not the time for bureaucratic, petty, short-sighted behaviour. My expectation is that something as critical as this would be executed with the goal in mind of vaccinating those that want it, and to convince those that are afraid to do it, to get the vaccine shot.

Under normal circumstances I would not complain or reach out to the paper but today one of my best friends is being buried in Long Island and he would have survived if he was vaccinated. It breaks my heart that he leaves his wife and four children, of which three are still in school, behind to face many hard decisions on their own, and that he won’t be there to guide them as his father did for him. He was the smartest and most brilliant carpenter I ever knew. He had the ability to see many steps ahead as we built difficult projects. He was also the best mechanic and anything he did, he became an expert at. He had so much knowledge and love to give to his boys and family and that won’t happen because of COVID. That is why I’m taking the time to write to you, because we will all eventually have a tragic story like this to share and we should all do our part to end this.

Let’s not give people on the fence a reason to not get vaccinated, we need them to please use common sense and remove all obstacles in the process.

JAMES BLAKE III

Nassau,

August 29, 2021