[ad_1]
The New York Times
Looking for a vaccine, some tourists find luck in the Caribbean
When Lydia Todman booked a trip to St. Croix with her husband earlier this month, she was only hoping for a relaxing getaway. But when she arrived, she learned that she could also get the COVID-19 vaccine. Todman, 43, said local residents she knew on the island encouraged her to make an appointment for a vaccine. At the time, she and her husband, who is 54 and has asthma, were not eligible for an injection in their home state of Georgia. But at Sainte-Croix, every adult is eligible. So she visited the website of the territorial health ministry, saw that they had appointments available for the next day, and signed up. “We were in and out in minutes,” Todman said. “It was amazing.” Sign up for The Morning New York Times newsletter Nearly 106,000 people call the U.S. Virgin Islands home, and the territory has administered more than 33,000 COVID-19 vaccines to date, with around 10,600 people now fully protected with two doses. At a press briefing Monday, Governor Albert Bryan Jr. estimated that at most 3%, or about 1,000 of those vaccines, went to tourists. “Have we realized that people are looking for us? Yes. And you know, we welcome everyone, ”said Angela East, coordinator and director of the COVID-19 vaccination program at Plessen Healthcare, which has administered 44% of all COVID-19 vaccines in the territory. “We are going to give you the shot in the spirit to put as many hits in the arms as possible.” Health officials and ethicists don’t see a big problem with vaccine tourism in the U.S. Virgin Islands, given the plentiful supply of vaccines and high levels of vaccine reluctance among residents. And the trend could diminish as more US states open up their eligibility criteria. Yet the wealthy Americans who travel to the Caribbean to obtain COVID-19 vaccines are one example of the many ways in which access to vaccines across the world is shaped by race, circumstances and privilege. In St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas, the three largest US Virgin Islands, vaccines are readily available to tourists in part due to vaccine reluctance, “which is very high in the Virgin Islands. “Said Dr Tai Hunte. -Ceasar, medical director of the territorial health ministry. This reluctance seems most pronounced among residents of color, Bryan said during the press briefing. “Caucasians who live in the Virgin Islands are more likely to take the vaccine and take it faster,” he said. When Bridget Platten, 40, who works in sales in New York City, received her COVID-19 vaccine in St. Croix, she was encouraged to tell friends to get the shots, too. “The doctor said, ‘Look, I have this whole vaccine. And people are afraid to get it here, ”recalls Platten. “’If you have any friends, or if there’s someone you know who wants a vaccine, ask them to call me.” Some Americans have traveled to the island specifically to get the vaccine. “My friends from New Jersey went, and the hardest question they faced was, ‘Will this be Pfizer or Moderna for you? Said Rob DeRocker, a marketing consultant from Tarrytown, New York, who spends winters in St. Croix. “The result was a mini-visitors’ lounge on an island whose tourist economy, like most others, has been brutalized by the pandemic.” This boom was helped by the fact that as of March 1, everyone over the age of 16 has the right to be vaccinated in the Virgin Islands – so tourists don’t even have to worry about cutting Queues. The territory also welcomes around a hundred people without an appointment every day. “Nowhere else in the United States can you come in and get the vaccine, anyone over 16,” Bryan said Monday. On March 1, the islands also opened two federally supported community vaccination centers in St. Thomas and St. Croix. American travelers also face less red tape when visiting the U.S. Virgin Islands compared to other Caribbean destinations. If they submit a negative coronavirus test within five days of leaving for the territory, or a positive antibody test taken within four months, they do not have to self-quarantine upon arrival. Travelers to Jamaica and Barbados, on the other hand, are urged to quarantine themselves no matter what. And American travelers cannot visit the Cayman Islands unless they meet strict eligibility criteria. Hunte-Ceasar said that at this point the health ministry did not view vaccine tourism as a problem. “We really want to make sure that local residents get vaccinated,” she said. But “we have not had a shortage in serving both populations”. The Virgin Islands have 27,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, 18,900 doses of the Moderna vaccine and 600 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine available, said Monife Stout, the department’s director of immunization. Noreen Michael, a scientist at the University of the Virgin Islands who studies health disparities, agreed that it was crucial to ensure that vaccines are available to residents who want them, but said she had not seen any evidence to suggest that tourists remove vaccines. residents who want it. “On the public health side, it’s a plus,” she said. “On the equity side, I don’t see this as a major problem.” Perhaps vaccine tourism could also be used as a force for good – to secure doses to marginalized groups in other regions. Although the Virgin Islands provide free COVID-19 vaccines, the islands could charge tourists for their vaccines and the funds could be used to send vaccines to areas in need, said Felicia Knaul, international health economist at the University of Miami. “Can we send these vaccines to Jamaica, the Dominican Republic or Haiti?” she asked. “Once you get past the key aspects of well-being and human rights, if you can use this funding to pay people who currently don’t have access, I think it’s worth it. ‘think about it.” For now, health authorities are focusing on ways to reduce reluctance to vaccination in the territory. “People access disinformation and perpetuate lies and harmful things,” Hunte-Ceasar said at a press conference last week. As a result, the islands have seen an increase in the number of cases and hospitalizations which she says cause her “chest pain and heartburn every night”. Although reluctance to vaccinate appears to be waning, residents will need to start broad adoption of the vaccine if the islands are to meet their goal of vaccinating 50,000 virgin islanders by July 1. additional doses. Some also stayed longer than expected – and even considered moving to the islands for good. “I started to fall in love with the culture of St. Croix,” said Hemal Trivedi, a documentary filmmaker who lives in Weehawken, New Jersey, and was vaccinated in St. Croix in February. “Towards the end of the trip, we were actually looking for a place to buy.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company
[ad_2]
Source link