A large part of being an adult is knowing when to ask for help. This is especially important when your decision impacts the welfare of others.
Asking for help can be as simple as “hey can you help me decipher my six year old’s math school work, because I am inept when it comes to numerical confrontations” or as complicated as “hey, so this is my first time in a pandemic and my first time trying to vaccinate the population so they don’t die and we can get things moving again, so can you lend a hand?”
Sigh.
Firstly, I want to say how proud I am of my fellow Trinbagonians who came out to get their vaccines. You all reignited my faith in humanity… well you relit a tiny ember of hope, there is still a lot to be set ablaze.
Unfortunately, our vaccination rollout has been less than smooth. And by less than smooth, it’s like the road through Valencia, just massive, axel breaking pot holes cascading down the side of a precipice.
Anyone who has been paying attention to the vaccine rollout from day one would have noticed that even when things appeared smooth, they weren’t.
The WhatsApp system for appointments is extremely frustrating. From the start this led to people showing up at various clinics hoping to be squeezed in or waiting for hours hoping there would be one or two unclaimed vaccines.
Why wasn’t a larger online system put in place? Why are we so against embracing the magic of technology?
With the appointment system being a hot mess, I am not too sure why our Government sought to try to go appointment less instead of just fixing the appointment system.
So naturally a gazillion people showed up, only to be told there wasn’t enough vaccines for everyone and naturally there was chaos.
Fun fact, no one has dealt with this type of national crisis before. And in times of uncertainty, the smartest thing to do is simply ask for help.
If it one thing that we have benefited from with our lateness to the Vaccinate Your Population Party is that we were able to observe how successful countries have managed their vaccination drives… I assure you none of them relied on a bum WhatsApp’s appointment system.
In fact if we look at many of our Caribbean sister nations, we can see that moves to involve the private sector have greatly helped with their vaccination drives.
Take for example Guyana. Their ministry of health worked with MovieTowne to host a drive through vaccination system. MovieTowne not only offered their facility but added the incentive of free movie tickets to those being vaccinated.
In the US they partnered with pharmacies such as Walgreens to distribute the vaccinations.
The common thread here is the Governments in nations where the vaccine rollout has been successful are those that have reached out to others, especially in the private sector.
I still cannot understand why our Government has shown such hesitancy to partner with businesses or organisations who want the same thing as them… reopening the country.
People have joked that the Government should have called on the mas band Tribe or rather all the mas bands to help organise the vaccine distribution since year after year they successfully distribute costumes with ease.
While that may be a stretch, the point is our Government has so many willing hands reaching out to help and they continuously slap them away like an angry toddler who wants to button their big boy shirt up by themselves.
On Friday an amazing construction company Bilda Boyz Construction Services Ltd, seeing the disaster of the appointment less vaccination drive that left elderly citizens standing up for hours, kindly loaded up a truck of chairs and distributed to the crowds waiting for vaccines.
Why didn’t the Government call out to various organizations to help before things got out of hand? Clearly they are willing to help.
From the payments of vaccines to offering to help with distribution our private sector has been begging to be involved.
Maybe the Government thinks they have underlying motives and cannot be trusted. Maybe they think the private sectors involvement will steal their glory.
But in my, perhaps misguided opinion, maybe the private sector just trying to do what needs to be done to save our country.
The Prime Minister can continue playing with our emotions, throwing hints of borders and schools reopening, until he is blue in the face, but the reality is unless we figure out a more streamlined system none of these can come to fruition.
Asking for help can be hard sometimes, but it is also necessary. We are in uncharted waters and need all the help we can get if we ever wish to reopen.
What we are reopening too…well that’s for another time.
