 The arrival here of 25,000 doses of the COVID-Shield AstraZeneca vaccine has significantly boosted St. Lucia's ability to manage and mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. And Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Chastney says government is working assiduously with other governments and international agencies to procure enough vaccines to have every St. Lucia vaccinated. Noting that accessing vaccines is a tedious process, both in relying on approval from the global health organizations and fighting through the crowded field of countries who are buying, Honourable Chastney assured that government will pursue all avenues to have St. Lucia's protected. Only three weeks ago AstraZeneca was approved. So this is a very current situation. In the case of India, India only manufactures AstraZeneca, but it's not licensed by the government of India. And so this donation is especially gratifying because India took their allocation of AstraZeneca and shared it not only with St. Lucia and the Caribbean, but with many other countries around the world. India is also producing several vaccines of their own. In fact, I believe that the vaccine that Prime Minister Modi took today was one of India's own vaccines. And we are anticipating that one of those vaccines actually will be approved by the WHO very shortly and we have made arrangements to both get a donation as well as to be able to purchase the remaining number of vaccines through that mechanism. The vaccine will not only help in reducing transmission of the virus, but it will also reduce severe COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and death. The AstraZeneca vaccine will also help in reducing pressures of treatment and care on the health care system and limit the impact of COVID-19. For this reason, the Prime Minister is encouraging all citizens to get vaccinated. Sadly, there are stories that are out there that are causing persons to second guess whether they should be vaccinated or not. I'm hoping that by my example and soon the example of the rest of my cabinet, by the example of the other leaders of this country, that persons would be encouraged to take the vaccine, not only to protect yourself, but to protect everyone else. As a caring government, our responsibility is to protect all of you. But we also do that in the context of your own civil rights and hopefully we can convince you to do the right thing. Our job is to make sure the vaccine is here, the vaccine that is available to you has been certified and approved by WHO. The rest of it is you. You have to agree to take that vaccine. Health Minister Senator Hon. Mary Isaac has thanked the Republic of India for playing a pivotal role in the global fight against COVID-19. And of course to the government and people of India, we salute you here in St. Lucia. You are the first agency organization country that volunteered to offer us vaccines here in St. Lucia. So we are extremely grateful for these vaccines and we know that we will continue to get the assistance of the government and people of India in our fight against COVID-19.