Minister of Public Health, Social Development and Labor VSA Richard Panneflek clarified during Wednesday’s press briefing that the COVID-19 vaccines will be provided to everyone living in St. Maarten, regardless of their status. However, so-called “part-time residents” such as visitors who stay several months primarily during the North American winter must get it where they are registered, because each country is planning for its own population.
As pointed out earlier, not giving undocumented immigrants access would have been risky at best, especially as a relatively high percentage of those who got sick and were hospitalised during the initial outbreak of COVID-19 were foreigners. Potential reasons mentioned were cramped housing, poor sanitary conditions and less-healthy eating habits, but also hesitation to report symptoms for fear of deportation.
To be sure, including them also presents challenges, such as the lack of reliable figures. The only relevant numbers would be from surveys by the Department of Statistics like the latest census, which do not make a distinction between legal and illegal inhabitants.
Then there is the need to register vaccine recipients obviously with some proof of identification. One imagines that passports from other nations would have to be accepted as such.
While people are free to refuse the vaccine, it is important that as many persons as possible on the island get it for what is called “herd immunity.” The latter means that even though youngsters up to 18 and a few others are not protected, their chance of contracting the disease also becomes small once most adults are.
However, this only works with a high prevalence of vaccination in all communities, so there are no hidden spreader locations left at the end of the process. In other words: If enough people take their individual responsibility and do the right thing the result will be positive.
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