Who is popular today?

THE rollout of the first tranche of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson covid19 vaccine begins on August 25.
Epidemiologist Dr Avery Hinds made the announcement at the virtual health news conference on Monday.
He said, "The Johnson & Johnson vaccines are being targeted for those rural communities..the ones that have difficulty with access...because of the advantage of having that one shot and you're done.
"That is expected to commence from Wednesday (August) 25 and that programme will continue to run from Wednesday 25th forward."
He also said the expiration dates of the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are November 30, 2021 and May 2023, respectively.
At a virtual health news conference on August 25, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh announced that the 108,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine that arrived on August 20 would go out to remote coastal and inland villages via mobile units.
Deyalsingh said, "There are many areas and pockets of communities in the coastal areas, even inland, that want to be vaccinated but don’t have the wherewithal to be transported twice to a mass vaccination site or even go to a health centre.”
The areas will include Blanchisseuse, Las Cuevas, Matelot, and Sans Souci on the north coast, Kernaham and Guayaguayare on the east coast, Moruga, Cedros, and Los Iros in the south, and Parlatuvier, Charlotteville, and Speyside in Tobago.
He added that inland communities would include Bangladesh in St Joseph, the Marabella Train Line, and Valencia. But he said these areas are located in fairly populous districts with access to health facilities such as the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, the Marabella and Valencia health centres, respectively.
“The community will be primed a couple days before via their MPs, their councillors, the RHAs (regional health authorities), mic-ing, messaging, so on, giving you the information."
At a virtual news conference on August 16, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said the 108,000 doses (which were en route to Trinidad and Tobago at the time) represented the first tranche of Johnson & Johnson vaccine from the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT). Government has committed to a total of 800,000 doses of this vaccine from AVAT.
At the time, Imbert estimated that expenditure for the purchase of covid19 vaccines to date was in the $75 million range.
Hinds said sites which have been designated for administering the Pfizer vaccine have additional measures in place to deal any potential allergic reaction to the vaccine.
"This is available at all sites."
He reiterated, "The vast majority of individuals currently being hospitalised are completely unvaccinated and...the remainder are generally individuals who only had a first dose of vaccine. The fully vaccinated individuals are not showing up in the hospitalised, seriously ill cases and so to, among the fatalities."
Hinds advised members of the public not to put their trust in systems being organised by entities outside the Health Ministry which claim to provide credible information about the risks related to covid19 vaccines.
"Whatever information is being put into such a system, cannot really be verified," he said, "What the ministry has in place is the existing events attributable to vaccination information system."
He said this system has been used successfully since covid19 vaccination began in TT in April to collect any information on any serious, adverse event. He said the information collected in this system is always supported by clinical verification.
"Any other system that claims to be in place does not have the support of any data protection as far as we are aware."
Hinds said such systems are not being monitored clinically by any clinical specialist associated with the ministry.
The post [UPDATED] Dr Hinds: Johnson & Johnson rollout starts August 25 appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.