Clergyman backs archbishop on vaccine mandate
ما يقرب من ٤ سنوات فى Jamaica Observer
While many pastors have fiercely rejected the appeal by Anglican archbishop of the West Indies, the Most Reverend Howard Gregory, to make vaccination mandatory, one man of the cloth, Reverend Father Sean Major-Campbell, has sided with the senior, saying that His Grace spoke with wisdom. According to Father Major-Campbell, who is a pastor at Christ Church in Vineyard Town, St Andrew, pandemics have a way of "making a distinction between decisive leaders and wishy-washy wannabes."With the seemingly increased rate of vaccine hesitancy in the country, Father Major-Campbell said, "His Grace has spoken with wisdom informed by courageous leadership. Jamaica is in a crisis, and this presents us with an opportunity to do leadership and management for the good of all."He continued: "A pandemic is, as the etymology of the word indicates, about all people. It requires corporate decisions for the whole. This is not the time to be sorting out individual arguments about rights and feelings. These are drastic circumstances calling for drastic measures. This is what I believe."Archbishop Gregory made the appeal to the Government last Wednesday, saying he was doing so against the background of continued vaccine hesitancy, the high COVID-19 infection and death rates in the country, and disclosure of the prospect that vaccines may be dumped because of the expiration of their recommended life."These are not normal times when every individual can choose to play by their own rules while untold suffering and loss of lives, well-being, the ability to conduct one's daily life and the return to vibrancy in the economy are at stake. We are in a critical time which requires unusual action; and the good of the whole must count at some point," Archbishop Gregory said.He added that it seemed clear that the Government, through leadership, must do what leaders do in times of a crisis and take decisive action. He also argued that while there are divergent views related to human rights and the law with regard to mandatory vaccines, there are sufficient legal luminaries who have pointed to the appropriateness of such action.Additionally, the archbishop said that while mandatory vaccination does not involve physically restraining people, the Government has a responsibility to protect citizens from infection by requiring proof of vaccination from public sector workers, as well as their customers.Likewise, he said employers in various sectors should have the discretion to determine the working environment they wish to promote for the well-being of their staff and the public they serve.Last week, Prime Minister Andrew Holness reiterated that he will not be forcing anyone to take the COVID-19 vaccine. However, he argued that mandatory vaccination will become unavoidable when a larger segment of the population becomes inoculated and demand that they should not be restricted by safety measures because others refuse to take the jab.However, Bishop Romeon Facey from Freedom Evangelical Association in Portmore, St Catherine, was not pleased with Archbishop Gregory's comments.He told the Jamaica Observer last Wednesday that, "God never raised pastors to administer science, he raised them up to preach the gospel. The Church has no position calling for mandatory vaccination. That's not the duty of a pastor, and I disagree with the archbishop. I do not believe that vaccines should be mandated because it goes against the human being's free will, and it goes against the freedom of choice that is given to Jamaicans through the constitution and the charter of rights. Everybody has freedom to choose what they do with their body,"Up to yesterday the island had administered some 755,782 total doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Of that number, 502,216 were first doses; 226,875 were second doses and 26,691 were the single-dose Johnson & Johnson.