Jouvert Morning 2018 in St. Thomas, USVI Photo Credit: REEMY-REEMZ PHOTOGRAPHY FOR VI CONSORTIUM
Governor Albert Bryan has been frustrated with the relatively low vaccination rate in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which has yet to cross the 50 percent threshold and is a long way from achieving the herd immunity holy grail of at least 70 percent inoculation.
On Monday, the governor said the Crucian Christmas Festival, which the Dept. of Tourism said would be a full-on event come December, would not happen if vaccinations don't arrive at 70 percent. His latest comments come as the Delta variant, recently confirmed in the territory, has forced recalculations by governments around the world as it has proven to be the most contagious strain of Covid-19 — containing 1,000 times more viral particles than the original virus.
Where we will be from now through December is "totally up to us," Mr. Bryan said Monday, referring to the Crucian Christmas Festival. "You want to fete then we'll get vaccinated and we'll come out. And if we don't then we won't."
Mr. Bryan spoke of the availability of monoclonal antibody drugs and other approved remedies aimed at helping the severely ill with Covid-19 recover. But if cases continue to surge and hospitalizations increase, the territory may run out of such drugs, leading to a catastrophic situation. "Our deepest fear is that we won't have that available," he said.
Back on the topic of the Crucian Christmas Festival, the governor stated, "If we get to 70 percent in the Virgin Islands and we're checking everybody who's coming in, we good. Festival is on. But if we can't get up there, we're not feting this festival. We're going be watching it on TV and reruns from old carnivals like we did last year."
"For whatever reason you take the vaccine, just take it. Let's get going," he said.
Mr. Bryan expressed his frustration with vaccine doubters and conspiracy theorists, contending that people abuse their bodies all the time, and that if the government wanted to kill people it could have done so already.
"The number one killer in the Virgin Islands is hypertension, heart disease and diabetes, and people [eating] macaroni and cheese, stuffing, seasoned rice, every single day. Souse and all of these other stuff.
"They're putting on clothes washed in chemicals that will poison your body. They're spraying dyes and all kinds of things in their hair. They're going to nail shops where they're filing down and inhaling all kinds of toxins every single day, and painting themselves and their hair and their fingers with all kinds of things that contaminate your body.
"They're putting phones to their heads full of radiation and all kinds of other things that are messing with their system. And every day and night they're going to bars and places and drinking sodas and all kinds of alcohol and other kinds of toxins in their body that they never know where it come from.
"They're eating at fast food restaurants, they don't know how it's made, what it's made from, or what kinds of plastic are in it, and you're going to tell me about vaccines? Let's get real.
"If the government had wanted to poison you and kill you they could have done so a lot faster, because all they had to do is put it in an app.
"I mean all of the arguments that I've listened to, vaccines have a long history. In 2021 we don't need to be going through the Black Plague of the dark ages because people don't want to take the medicine. And so many places in the world people wish they could have this medicine in order to survive.
"Bottomline, if you get sick, you're going to be begging for the monoclonal antibodies which is the same technology that we use in the vaccine."
