Wickham believes vaccine mandate won’t affect SVG election results

Barbadian pollster and political scientist Peter Wickham says he believes that Vincentians have moved beyond the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, under which hundreds of public sector workers lost their jobs in 2021.

However, Wickham’s comments on WE FM on Sunday suggested that he might have lost track of the fact that the mandate came into effect more than a year after the November 2020 elections and that voters have not had a chance to express their view on it in an election.

In late 2021, the Ralph Gonsalves-led Unity Labour Party (ULP) administration mandated that a large section of the public service take a COVID-19 jab or be deemed to have abandoned their jobs.

Hundreds of workers lost their jobs and the SVG Teachers’ Union, Public Service Union, and Police Welfare Association sponsored a lawsuit against the government.

The High Court ruled in favour of the dismissed workers, but the Court of Appeal, in a 2-1 judgement, overturned that decision.

The unions have been waiting for months for the decision of the Court of Appeal on whether to send the case to the London-based Privy Council, the nation’s highest court, for final determination.

On Sunday, Wickham, who has done research work for the ULP, was asked his opinion on the role that the mandate might play as Vincentians elect a new government.

“I am surprised that that would still be an issue, because I think that most people have gotten past it in many ways,” Wickham said.

“My problem with that whole vaccine mandate thing was that I always thought that the vaccine mandate was necessary, and I have a bias in that regard, that I am a person that believes that — I went to school and I got vaccinated, and I think that people, when you have a public health crisis, to get vaccinated.”

Wickham said he respects religious rights but “had challenges understanding why people that had no scientific basis, and they were contraindicated, they didn’t have any medical condition, they weren’t religious, they were just insistent that they’re not going to take the vaccine”.

He said he has done research for UNICEF on vaccines and vaccinations that found that “a lot of those people who refused to take the vaccine, they were doing so because they want to make a political statement.

“And I thought it was unfortunate. You’re going to use that kind of crisis to make a political statement? But that’s what it was.

“I do have a bias in this regard, but I’m a bit surprised that that’s even an issue still, because my thing is, so much has happened since that. Vincentians have gone past that.”

The opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) supported COVID-19 vaccination but opposed the mandate, with several of its MPs saying that they had not taken the jab.

As a result, they were made to observe special protocols in Parliament, such as wearing a face mask.

Wickham expressed the view that if the NDP were in power, they probably would have mandated COVID-19 vaccination.

“Because that’s the thing. I mean, when you’re in power, you have to make hard decisions,” he said. 

“We did not have a mandate in Barbados in the same way, because our population was compliant; everybody went like sheep and got the vaccination, myself included. … They didn’t have vaccine mandates in the vast majority of European countries, either, simply because everybody was taking it, people were lining up to take it and say, ‘Yeah, when can I get it?”

Wickham said there were vaccine mandates in places “where there were sections of the population that were resilient and saying, ‘We are not taking this vaccine.’ So, the uptake was slow. In order to get the economy open, government had to take some hard decisions.’

“And I would hazard a guess, if the NDP was in power, they would have done exactly the same thing, because they would have been facing the same kind of problem that Ralph Gonsalves was facing, where he’s saying, ‘Look, we have to get this economy going again and country open and whatnot.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados are among the few Caribbean countries that never closed their borders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his dissenting judgment at the Court of Appeal, acting Justice of Appeal Wallbank noted that in terms of the incidence rate for COVID-19 per 100,000 of population amongst CARPHA Member States, the three highest were Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Suriname.

The judge noted that SVG was surpassed by 12 states/territories — Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Curacao, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Surname and Trinidad and Tobago — all of which had a higher incidence per 100,000 than SVG.

“This warrants observation, as it presents the circumstance that the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines uniquely, in the region, adopted the severe measure of requiring public officers to take the Vaccine on pain of losing their jobs, despite being surpassed in terms of incidence per 100,000 by twelve other States/Territories,” Justice Wallbank said.

“The evidence does not disclose any reason why such a uniquely severe measure should be adopted in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.”

The judge noted that the groups of Vincentians whose training helps them to recognise misinformation were among the people who persisted in refusing to take the jab.

Wickham said he was fascinated that people who refused to take the jab took it to go on vacation in the United States.

He noted that people have to take the yellow fever vaccine to visit Jamaica.

“And, everyone goes and gets a yellow fever vaccination.  I honestly don’t see the big deal.”

However, unlike the yellow fever vaccine, the COVID-19 jab was an experimental drug whose manufacturers were granted indemnity for any injury resulting from its use.

“I’m a bit surprised that five years on that this thing even comes up. My sense is that the Vincentians have assessed the government as having passed the COVID test. The fact that they were able to win that election was essentially a statement of the population’s approval of how COVID was being managed,” Wickham said, referring to the November 2020 election, which took place a year before the mandate came into effect.

“The economy is back on its feet now and moving forward, and clearly the COVID test was passed. So, I don’t know there’s a lot of currency or relevance in terms of going after that issue again.”

Vincentians are widely expected to go to the polls by November, ahead of the February 2026 constitutional deadline.