SHAS­TRI BOODAN

For­mer Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment, Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, is urg­ing young peo­ple to get vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19.

Speak­ing with the me­dia on Tues­day, he re­vealed that he has lost sev­er­al loved ones, in­clud­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends, to COVID-19.

Dr Ra­mad­hars­ingh, a vet­eri­nar­i­an, said young peo­ple are at risk be­cause of the dif­fer­ent vari­ants cur­rent­ly cir­cu­lat­ing of the coro­n­avirus that caus­es the COVID-19 dis­ease.  He not­ed that COVID-19 is a zoonot­ic dis­ease start­ed by bats and trans­mit­ted to hu­mans.

He said the vac­cine is a shield against COVID-19. 

“Go to your per­son­al med­ical physi­cian and once they give you the okay, then take the vac­cine. The vac­cine is the shield. The vac­cine gives you a chance to mit­i­gate the harsh­ness of what is the most bru­tal virus that cre­at­ed a pan­dem­ic,” he ex­plained.

“The 12- to 18-year-old co­hort is now in fo­cus be­cause of the vari­ants.  We are now see­ing young deaths and see­ing that we have vari­ants, we have to step up the chal­lenge and en­cour­age them to get vac­ci­nat­ed,” the for­mer min­is­ter said.

Dr Ra­mad­hars­ingh said youths should get a med­ical test to en­sure they can take the vac­cine.

“We need to pro­tect our young peo­ple be­cause they will fall prey to the vari­ants and the dif­fer­ent strains. This virus is on the run and con­tin­ues to change. We need to vac­ci­nate the en­tire pop­u­la­tion," he ar­gued.