Have compassion, please, PM Gonsalves

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Request for compassion and acknowledgement of error re the vaccine mandate

“The Lord has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” — Micah 6:8”

Over the years, this verse from the Holy Bible has been one of your favourite quotations. In fact, you quoted it in your United Nations speech in September. It is against this backdrop that I express how profoundly saddened I am, on hearing your “deconstruction”, as you called it, of the NDP’s vaccine mandate reinstatement pledge. The statements were made on your Wednesday morning program on NBC Radio 705, on Oct. 8.

As a victim of this unfortunate policy decision of the ULP government, the continuous misinformation and disinformation surrounding this matter is like rubbing salt in the wound. It creates a level of post-traumatic stress that only the Lord can heal, and, with time, I know that He will heal us. As part of my therapeutic process, I will seek to correct the recent misinformation and disinformation as respectfully as possible.

Distortion of the concluding statement of Justice Paul Webster

In your presentation, you quoted the concluding statement of Justice Paul Webster, one of two justices who upheld the government’s appeal, with Justice Wallbank dissenting. This was the judgment delivered by the Court of Appeal on Feb. 12, 2025.

The first sentence of the concluding statement of Justice Webster was distorted. Justice Webster stated: “My overall conclusion is that it is unfortunate that the actions of the employees resulted in their deemed resignations from their employment.”

This sentence, in my humble opinion, has shown an attempt to love mercy, as the Prophet Micah implores us to do. Your response was, “I agree with that; it’s unfortunate that they didn’t take the vaccine”. In my perception, these two sentences differ in the message that each one conveys.

Misinformation regarding the prevailing situation in SVG

Justice Webster’s statement continued: “However, the government was faced with a drastic crisis of unprecedented proportions that was causing significant health issues and loss of life.”

Prime Minister, you placed a lot of emphasis on this sentence by reading it twice and stating “that those who talk gloss over this”.

However, it can be easily proven that this was not the prevailing condition at the time the law for the mandate was enacted. It was quite obvious that a vaccine mandate was intended from the get go and, therefore, no significant health issue or loss of life was required to trigger the mandate.

Some Facts

In December 2020, mere weeks before the introduction of the vaccine, your government was, deservingly, patting itself on the back, saying that you had managed the pandemic well. It was stated that the rest of the world could learn from your government’s response, because you had zero deaths and few cases, after managing the pandemic for eight months up to that time. Health care workers and others were lauded in Parliament for their dedicated work and promised some form of recognition.

By the time the vaccine had started to be rolled out in February 2021, there were six deaths among mainly elderly individuals with pre-existing conditions. These deaths coincided with a massive spike of COVID-19 cases that had occurred consequent to the relaxing of measures for the Christmas festivities. Mr. Prime Minister, you also made statements that the deaths were among older persons with pre-existing conditions and assured Vincentians that COVID-19 was not a death sentence.

Mr. Carlos James, MP for North Leeward, in April 2021, informed constituents and others listening to his live broadcast that taking the vaccine was not voluntary.

The data shows that there was no drastic crisis of unprecedented proportions that was causing significant health issues and loss of life; despite the relocation of 20,000 Vincentians due to the volcanic eruption. In fact, when the law was passed in August 2021, there were an additional six COVID-19-related deaths, an average of one per month, bringing the total to 12.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines has had an average of 975 deaths each year for the five years preceding 2021. Therefore, without a pandemic, the country should have had approximately 580 deaths up to early August, assuming an even spread. Assuming that the 12 deaths attributed to COVID-19, were as a result of COVID-19 and not the pre-existing conditions, the 12 deaths represented a 2% increase.

Data was available publicly for 10 of the 12 people who died and the majority was reported as having multiple pre-existing conditions. With regard to age, four people were in their 80s (80yrs, 87yrs, 87yrs, 88yrs); one person was 76 years old; two people were in their 60s (63 yrs, 69yrs); one person was 54 years while another person was 49 years old (both listed as having multiple pre-existing conditions) and the 10^th person was 25 years old (no other information was provided).

The average age from the 10 COVID-19-related deaths was 68 years. This means that the majority of deaths were among elderly, retired individuals. This certainly should not have been used to justify a vaccine mandate among younger, employed individuals. The notion that the younger individuals had to take it to protect the elderly was also false, as the jab was proven ineffective in stopping transmission.

Little regard for the mental wellbeing of vaccine mandate victims

Justice Webster’s concluding statement continued:

“Measures had to be taken to address the situation. In the circumstances that were prevailing during the pandemic, the measures that were taken were not disproportionate, not unconstitutional, not ultra-vires, nor procedurally unfair. Those who choose to not comply, no matter how conscientious their objections, had to deal with the consequences of their non-compliance.”

In referring to the last sentences on the concluding statement, Prime Minister, you repeated the sentences with emphasis. What was most painful, however, was the use of the word punchline. The “punchline” is the final part of a joke, story or statement that delivers the surprise, humour or main point; it’s what makes the joke funny or the message hit hard. This decision by the justice of appeal was no mere punchline for me; it resulted in pain, suffering and anguish as I am sure it did to thousands of other Vincentians as well.

Inappropriately equating vaccine mandate with quarantine

Quarantine, isolation or the separation of people with infectious diseases was a practice taught in the Old Testament, where God gave Israel detailed public health laws, including quarantine measures.

• Leviticus 13:4 (NKJV) “But if the bright spot is white on the skin of his body, and does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and the hair on it has not turned white, then the priest shall isolate the one who has the sore seven days.”
• Leviticus 13:46 (NKJV) “He shall be unclean all the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.”
• Numbers 5:2–3 (NKJV) “Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse. You shall put out both male and female; you shall put them outside the camp that they may not defile their camps in the midst of which I dwell.”

It was painful to hear you, Prime Minister, humorously give more credence to the quarantining of persons who were infected with COVID-19 in the community of Greiggs than to the victims of the vaccine mandate for several reasons. Firstly, the Greiggs quarantine would have lasted for about two weeks while my separation from my job was intended to be permanent. Secondly, the persons in Greiggs would have been well taken care of, whereas my plight is one where I don’t know where my next meal is coming from, day to day.

Misinformation regarding religious and medical exemptions

The promise of obtaining an exemption on medical and religious grounds was not real. According to your government’s affidavit submitted to the Court of Appeal, only one person out of 186 persons who applied for a religious exemption was granted an exemption. An additional five persons were granted religious exemption, which was subsequently nullified by the conditions imposed.

What was most painful about this, Prime Minister, is the fact that you said to the nation that you needed to engage in prayerful consideration before deciding to be jabbed. However, once you had obtained your spiritual guidance, the spiritual needs of others appeared not to matter.

Misinformation regarding reapplying versus reinstatement

Prime Minister, in your presentation on the morning programme, it was surprising to hear you only mention the word reinstatement. Your government has always stated that the teachers should reapply. In fact, Mr. Curtis King, the minister of education, was very clear in making this distinction between reapplying and reinstatement. Mr. King stated emphatically that your government will not reinstate workers. It is, therefore, not true that what your government was offering and what the New Democratic Party is now offering are the same.  

Prime Minister, I thank you for offering dismissed workers the opportunity to indicate to the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO), our desire to come back to our duties. This call from you, which was offered on Feb. 12, 2025, has not borne fruit for some, especially the health care providers who indicated.

This process turned out to be an act of further humiliation for most who decided to indicate. Some did not indicate because of a lack of trust in the system and they wanted to see the outcome of those who dared to trust the system.

The following were some of the outcomes:

Indifference from Service Commissions Department as calls went unanswered or not returned; long absence of the CPO; mixed instructions which changed every time you visited; being told that the information was sent to the ministry; checking with the permanent secretary of the said ministry, just to be told they don’t know anything.

In some ministries, the excuse was, “We are waiting on the Ministry of Finance to release the posts.” Some workers were even told, “Don’t call us, we will call you.”

Eight months later, some people have not even been contacted and are still waiting as instructed. Not even an update has been provided. All in all, the process has been very uneven, subjective and frustrating.

Discord among Vincentians

Prime Minister, I am kindly asking you not to use language which may incite hatred towards those of us who chose not to be jabbed. We have suffered enough and have many scars to show. The back-pay figure, which you state is “back of the envelope”, 50 to 60 million dollars, is incorrect.

According to the affidavit submitted by the CPO to the Court of Appeal, the back-pay figure for all the claimants was 11.3 million dollars for 16 months at that time in March 2023. Since that time, it has been an additional 32 months, so if all workers were still off the job, the new figure should be approximately 33.9 million dollars.

However, you have stated that hundreds of workers have returned to work, therefore, they should not be counted when calculating the additional back-pay. You have also stated that only a minority, tiny group of workers have not returned. Therefore, the rough estimate should be less than 20 million dollars due in back pay.

Please do not traumatise us any further by saying to the farmers, the fishermen, the ordinary workers and everybody else that they are the ones who must pay us for staying at home. This is very ironic as some of us have become farmers, fishermen/women, taxi drivers, vendors, etc. in order to survive.    

Prime Minister, President Donald Trump is not considering reinstatement of workers fired due to the United States vaccine mandate, President Trump has reinstated workers with back-pay and an apology. This was one of his first executive orders in January 2025, within days after his inauguration.

Victim blaming

Prime Minister, as one of the claimants, it is painful to listen to you blaming us for holding up the process of obtaining the leave to appeal to the Privy Council. Since our lawyers submitted the application for leave in February 2025, I have been inquiring. The lawyers had given us an idea of the timeline and I was puzzled as to what was causing the delay. This ordeal has been very unpleasant and I would be wicked to myself to have a hand in prolonging it.

It is my hope that we will be granted leave, despite the following discourse as to whether or not we will be granted leave. The following comments from you caused me to pause and wonder. “If you get leave to appeal, I don’t know if they’re getting leave to appeal. If they don’t get leave to appeal from the Court of Appeal, they’ll have to go to the Privy Council and ask the Privy Council for leave. You see where I’m coming from? I don’t want to comment on what may happen at the leave stage.”

Prime Minister, you have stated that the NDP government would not have the legal basis to provide back-pay within 60 days of taking office; without ignoring the February 2025 judgment, which you have stated is the law of the land. I am not legally trained, but I posit that were the NDP government to ignore the February 2025 judgment, this would not be untoward, as precedent has already been set. The March 2023 judgment by Justice Esco Henry, which also should have been the law of the land, was ignored and labelled as an anti-vax judgment of first instance. It was so ignored that workers were ridiculed by senior public servant, when they dared to return to their jobs following the then “law of the land” judgment. I am also curious as to whether or not this judgment is already being ignored, as workers have been invited back.

In addition, the August 2021 vaccine mandate law, and the accompanying SR&Os are still on the books to the best of my knowledge. You had also indicated, at the public service week of activities’ church service, that you will be going to Parliament to rectify the workers’ pension benefit issues that will arise at retirement.

In closing, I remind you of your famous quotation, ‘The Lord has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8’

Respectfully,

Disenfranchised born-Vincentian

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