MINISTRY of Health permanent secretary in charge of administration Dr George Magwende says people should not spend their energies arguing about whether or not COVID-19 vaccines work as they have demonstrated to be effective.

In an interview, Dr Magwende said people’s energies should be channeled towards encouraging others to get vaccinated so that they were protected.

“There is no controversy there. Remember everyone in this country can say whatever they want to say as they believe. You, as a well-informed journalist, you know what’s the status quo. The Ministry of Health has official spokespersons, every facility has an official spokesperson. If you go on and quote each and every gentleman or lady that claims to be a medical doctor, that claims to be an authority, we are going to have a very noisy country. So there is basically no controversy. We are all in agreement that for us to control COVID-19, first we need to observe the guidelines for its prevention. And also the emphasis on vaccinations which also includes our young ones that are 12 years up to 18 years. We need to enhance vaccination because that’s the only proven way to protect ourselves,” he said.

“As you might be aware, those that have in the recent past been admitted, those that have had to be on oxygen and even eventually losing lives, the majority have been those that are not vaccinated. Those that are vaccinated have some degree of protection and the statistics, the numbers, indicate that. So we should not spend our energy on whether it works or it doesn’t work because it has demonstrated that it works. Our energies should be encouraging people to vaccinate. Look at our colleagues in the western world, they can now go to watch football without wearing masks, they are going to malls without wearing masks. Why? Because a huge number of people are vaccinated. Here we are still grappling because of entertaining such comments. We don’t have such time Dorothy.”

Dr Magwende said the Ministry of Education and teachers had been supportive in the vaccination process of school-going children.

“The response is very good and I must state that the support from the Ministry of Education is very good, and consent from parents of these kids is being obtained and the teachers are being supportive. You know those schools that are looking down on such processes, should we have other waves, you might find out that those are the schools that may suffer closures because their kids would have caught the cold and they would have serious symptoms and things like that. Those that are promoting vaccination, those that are pushing this agenda for vaccination are looking forward because they know that this is a protective technique that is available. And the vaccines are available, we have got adequate vaccines to cover our population that are ready for vaccination. So why should we not take up this opportunity to cover ourselves, cover our children, I think it’s the only thing that we can do for now,” said Dr Magwende.