Guinea Pigs For COVID-19 Vaccine?
As news of the vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) becoming available for use continues to swirl, residents of the British Virgin Islands are concerned, that they could be used as Guinea pigs to test out the strength of the crucial vaccine.
However, Premier Andrew Fahie has assured residents that when these vaccines are available, it will not be mandatory to residents.
“We respect people’s rights with it because there are persons who, because of religious beliefs, they don’t want to take the vaccine or their religion doesn’t allow it. There are also persons who want to make sure that this vaccine is working! We run from these things but everyone you meet, just about, they tell you ‘Fahie, don’t let them experiment on us with these vaccines and then when you finish you hear this, and that and our people are guinea pigs.” They are concerned, and rightfully so,” he said on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 during the House of Assembly.
He added, “Anything new brings concern, but Anything new that has to go into your body could bring a lot of concern. Persons are going to be overcautious and they have every right to be so. So we have to make sure that we exercise with an abundance of caution,” he added.
In the meantime, Host of the Honestly Speaking Radio Programme Claude Skelton Cline who is also a pastor said he “can’t wait for the vaccine to come,” while urging others to not be fearful of the vaccine.
“I don’t want you to live in fear out of fiction and conspiracy. I mean come on, we trust so many other things every day, we get in trains, we drive in cars…we go down to the Dr. D Orlando Smith Hospital, we go up to Bougainvillea, we go to the pharmacy we get a prescription, we don’t know a thing what is in that tablet, but we take them and hope to God they work and more often than not they do,” he said on Thursday.
As for the religious persons linking the virus to the biblical reference to the ‘Mark of the Beast’ Skelton-Cline rubbished those statements.
“Nothing can be crazier than some toxic religion …taking about there is a chip in the vaccine. As a matter of fact, all the talk about the Mark of the Beast is nonsense, yes that’s what I just said as a trained theologer, as a pastor, a teacher. You have not read the book of Revelation, and you can come up with this stuff. It is nonsense,” Cline stated.
“We respect people’s rights with it because there are persons who, because of religious beliefs, they don’t want to take the vaccine or their religion doesn’t allow it. There are also persons who want to make sure that this vaccine is working! We run from these things but everyone you meet, just about, they tell you ‘Fahie, don’t let them experiment on us with these vaccines and then when you finish you hear this, and that and our people are guinea pigs.” They are concerned, and rightfully so,” he said on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 during the House of Assembly.
He added, “Anything new brings concern, but Anything new that has to go into your body could bring a lot of concern. Persons are going to be overcautious and they have every right to be so. So we have to make sure that we exercise with an abundance of caution,” he added.
In the meantime, Host of the Honestly Speaking Radio Programme Claude Skelton Cline who is also a pastor said he “can’t wait for the vaccine to come,” while urging others to not be fearful of the vaccine.
“I don’t want you to live in fear out of fiction and conspiracy. I mean come on, we trust so many other things every day, we get in trains, we drive in cars…we go down to the Dr. D Orlando Smith Hospital, we go up to Bougainvillea, we go to the pharmacy we get a prescription, we don’t know a thing what is in that tablet, but we take them and hope to God they work and more often than not they do,” he said on Thursday.
As for the religious persons linking the virus to the biblical reference to the ‘Mark of the Beast’ Skelton-Cline rubbished those statements.
“Nothing can be crazier than some toxic religion …taking about there is a chip in the vaccine. As a matter of fact, all the talk about the Mark of the Beast is nonsense, yes that’s what I just said as a trained theologer, as a pastor, a teacher. You have not read the book of Revelation, and you can come up with this stuff. It is nonsense,” Cline stated.