The Tribune

IF you've been browsing on social media over the last few weeks I suspect, like us, you're getting a bit fed up with the videos from the FNM and PLP popping up every few minutes telling you how great they are and you should give them your vote.

The election they seem to already be fighting is, possibly, still more than a year away but on the face of it that's all they seem to be focussed on.

There is one issue which they should both be focussing on – vaccination.

Despite assurances from Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis during his regular Sunday sermons that the vaccine is safe the message has not gotten through.

Have a look at today's story on two local homes which care for the elderly.

Even though the first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine arrived yesterday it seems incredible to us that people running facilities such as these are still confused, unsure whether to take the vaccine or not.

How has this happened? If the vaccine is to work the vast majority of adults in The Bahamas have to take it. The science says at least 80 percent of the population must be immunised.

One care home owner in today's story says she won't be taking it and is nervous about recommending it for the 70 seniors in her care.

These are some of the precise people the first stage of the rollout will be targeting. Any doubts they've had should have been resolved weeks ago, not by watching the PM on a Sunday afternoon but by health officials going into these premises and answering every question they've got.

Several hundred million people around the world have already been vaccinated. Yes, there are mild side effects but none have been found to be of any real seriousness. From what we've read over many months you can expect swelling in the area of the injection, some people will experience a mild fever but this doesn't normally last more than 24 hours.

That's it.

We know some people think it's way too early to be using a vaccine which has only been created in a matter of months, surely these things take years of development, they argue.

Well, in normal circumstances that's true but these aren't normal days. The whole world has pretty much stopped moving for a year. No industry, no travel, no schools, no families to visit, no friends to spend time with.

While we've been hunkered down in on-again, off-again lockdowns the world's best scientists working at giant pharmaceutical companies have thrown every resource they have at the one problem – how to stop COVID-19.

This global effort has now achieved what it set out to do.

The vaccination is here and everyone eligible should be taking it.

It would be a crying shame to see people turn away because we never made our own all-out effort to explain precisely how the vaccine works.

If if means going into care homes and places of work then that should happen – and quickly.

The key to opening the door back to a normal life is in our hands – let's not blow it.