Jamaicans on Twitter are ripping into Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton for a tweet perceived as thinly veiled gaslighting on Sunday (March 7).

Tufton, who shared the island’s worryingly high daily record of 723 new cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19), added in his tweet that Jamaicans should “let that sink in”.

It was not immediately clear what the minister intended with the tonality of the tweet, however, a series of tweets later, he renewed his appeal to citizens to adhere to the COVID-19 prevention protocols.

What many Twitter users found more alarming than the precipitous edge Jamaica’s already struggling health sector finds itself as hospitals brim above capacity to deal with the current outbreak—was the impression that the man leading the fight against the pandemic resorted to gaslighting the wider population.

To say the tweet has triggered a firestorm is an understatement.

“The government continues to gaslight citizens whilst the measures put in place have proven to be insufficient,” @daryneweekly said in response to Tufton’s tweet.

“I understand the frustration that this may cause, if it were that the country’s leaders had put in effective measures instead of parading as if these are working and the people are the problem. The system doesn’t allow for clear cut approaches and constantly this is what the measures reflect. A lack of nuance when it comes to the population and the different variables at play,” he added.

Tufton’s word’s, or rather how they were framed, gave Jamaicans the impression that instead of recalibrating and intensifying the national effort, the country should just accept blame, sit and wait for worse to come.

“Let what sink in? This [government’s] lost of trust from the people? Your failure to properly manage the pandemic? Seems doubt and failure of a minister is showing up in Tufton tweet. You are glad to take the credit now, take the blame too,” opposition Senator Lambert Brown replied.

“Government has made the narrative that we’re responsible for COVID so much so we accept the fault as our own. It’s people breaking curfew, not the government not enforcing it. Soon it’ll be crime. Is unnu killing off each other, not the government incapable of controlling crime,” @berchellwhitemn tweeted.

In the eyes of many, the truth has been laid bare for all to see. The government continues to peddle its priority of preserving the economy, with an ‘encouragement’ to private-sector interests to reinstitute work-from-home arrangements all while disregarding the truth that thousands who have recently become infected do so en route to work/home. It is a signal of the cognitive dissonance in the highest levels of leadership.

“No. But seriously. Sink in where?? The people who are doing the right thing have been doing it with diligence. Many of us are fatigued. The people who haven’t been have not faced any significant penalties for flouting the protocols. There have been no new strategies in months,” ambrosia_omG contended.

Other members of the Jamaican Twitterati questioned why Tufton chose to announce the new figures on his account when the Ministry of Health and Wellness website did not post the clinical management summary until an hour after the tweet.

Some Twitter pundits agree, however, that the situation is reaching a deadly climax largely due to wanton disregard for the Disaster Risk Management Act (DMRA). COVID fatigue and the need for entertainment has given birth to illegal parties and an indifference to the disease.

“723 cases should tell you that people just don’t care anymore,” @GinaWatss tweeted.

“I see people blaming tourism for this, when I doubt it’s tourists going to all these parties/9 nights/churches etc etc etc we’re seeing on social media nightly,” @5_star_smitty argued.

Jamaica’s cumulative coronavirus caseload now sits at 26,026 with the confirmation of 723 new infections within the last 24 hours. A healthcare sector about to burst at the seams is managing 11,039 active cases, while 453 Jamaicans have died due to coronavirus-related complications.

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