 The Ministry of Health and Wellness continues a robust national vaccination campaign, encouraging members of the public to get vaccinated as St. Lucia strives to return to normalcy. Vaccination against the coronavirus according to health officials aids not only in fighting the virus but reducing the risk of developing the severe form of the illness, hospitalisation and even death. Minister for Tourism, Information and Broadcasting, Culture and Creative Industries Honourable Dominic Fede indicated that while significant progress is being made in obtaining herd immunity, vaccination hesitancy remains a concern. Vaccine, the whole business of vaccine hesitancy, remains a major concern for our government and we are going to do anything possible to encourage St Lucia to get vaccinated because what we have seen in countries where people have vaccinated in large numbers, it has had a significant positive impact on the number of or the rate of hospitalisation, the rate of deaths and the rate of infection of COVID-19 and the science is showing that the vaccine has been a game changer and it has been one of the greatest weapons that we can use to fight against COVID-19 and so what we have to do is really use our respective offices and certainly I want to encourage you the media to use your platforms to encourage people to go get vaccinated and to really take the job. It really is one of the biggest ways in which we can fight this and reclaim our lives and return to normalcy. The minister looking globally at vaccination efforts noted that world leaders at the recently held G7 summit in the UK had expressed concern about the inequality taking place as it relates to access to vaccines. He went on to explain that there is a lot of concern surrounding the accessibility of vaccines by poorer countries and the slow pace at which citizens in developing and poorer countries are being vaccinated. Citing the pledge made by more developed countries to aid where possible, Honourable Fadia asserted that the fight against COVID-19 is a global one. There have been some pledges that they have made to help the developed world and the poorer countries to get up and step up the rate of vaccination because the way that we can fight COVID is with a global approach and so I welcome that and what we really want to do is to make sure that when we continue to receive greater numbers of doses that our people will be ready to take them and what we have to do is use a multiple approach to ensure that we encourage more people to go and take the job. Obviously the anti-vaxxers and their campaign really doesn't help the whole situation so what we have to do is allow the science to inform what is happening and we see what's happening in the United States, we see what's happening in the UK, two of the forerunners in vaccinations and in both instances those countries are seeing a significant decline in the rate of hospitalization, the rate of infection and the rate of deaths have come down significantly so really everything there in the science suggests that we should go take the vaccine. Members of the public are encouraged to get vaccinated to protect not only themselves but their loved ones as well. From the Government Information Service, I am Janelle Norville.