Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony today expressed his support for those private businesses that are mandating staff members to get vaccinated or face regular COVID-19 testing.

During his daily COVID-19 update, the Health Minister said that while there has been no confirmation of the new COVID-19 variants being present in Guyana, all of the signs are pointing to the presence of the variants

He said vaccination is important especially in the workplace and in service delivery organizations, noting that the move by the private businesses is to also make their work environment safe.

“You have to understand that that is one way of encouraging a safe environment. Now if it is a place that offers service to the public you are not only putting your co-workers at risk, you are also putting the public at risk if you are not vaccinated. So, I think more and more, as people get serious and understand the implications of this virus that you will see more and more people trying to implement systems like this”, Anthony said.

The Minister stopped short of saying whether the Government will be amending legislation to make vaccination mandatory, making it clear that the government will do what it must to protect citizens.

“We are looking at what is evolving from an epidemiological point of view, and we would take all necessary steps to ensure that people are protected,” The Health Minister said.

While he did not say why his Ministry has failed to get sequencing tests done for the new variants of the virus, Dr. Anthony said the new variants are posing some challenges and many countries are moving to make vaccination mandatory. He pointed out that concerns continue to be raised worldwide over the Delta variant which is faster spreading.

“So this variant is a very serious variant, we would have seen the consequences in some countries like in India, where thousands upon thousands of people died from this particular variant. This particular variant is in several countries probably more than 60 countries,” The health minister said.

According to the Minister of Health, Guyana will continue its quest to get citizens vaccinated to avoid the Delta variant dominating daily lives.

Vaccination is not mandatory in Guyana.

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