Labelling Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ latest announcements around measures to battle the spread of COVID-19 “a disappointingly hollow performance”, the People’s National Party (PNP) has accused the Government of running out of ideas on how to get on top of the crisis.

During a virtual press conference Monday night, Holness announced that, amid spiking cases of COVID-19, the start of weekday curfew hours would, as of Wednesday (August 11), move from 8 pm to 7 pm. Curfews will begin at 6 pm on Saturdays and 2 pm on Sundays.

“The entire nation is deeply concerned that, Instead of offering meaningful initiatives that can tackle the COVID crisis, the PM is merely reshuffling the past measures that have not worked,” said Dr Morais Guy, opposition spokesman on health.

“The PM has failed to explain how COVID will be contained by starting the curfew one hour earlier each day. To the contrary, people leaving work in the afternoons will be bungling up in supermarkets and grocery stores so as to get off the road before the earlier curfew starts. The Opposition has long contended that this will facilitate, rather than curtail, the spread of the virus.”

He added: “Similarly, the nation is hard pressed to understand what is to be achieved by starting the curfew at 2:00 pm rather than at 3:00 pm on Sundays? Will that really have any impact on the spread of the virus?”

Guy argued that, while the Government was focusing on moving up curfew starts by an hour, there remains no effective enforcement of the rules around entry into the island, resulting in the break down of the quarantine system for visitors to Jamaica.

“An extra hour of curfew will not address this glaring weakness in the system, either,” he said while reiterating previously released PNP proposals for getting the country on track to beat the virus.

Among those proposals was immediately expanding the reach of the vaccination programme by bringing it to
community centres, churches and schools within densely populated urban communities and deep rural areas, where many people are unable or unwilling to travel elsewhere to be vaccinated.

However, that proposal has already been taken on board with the Ministry of Health and Wellness announcing last week that it administered more than 900 vaccine doses to individuals across West Central St Catherine as part of a pilot for community-based vaccinations.

Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton indicated during Monday evening’s press conference that further community-based vaccination drives would get under way this week with more details likely to be announced during his regular COVID Conversations press conference on Thursday.

Also among the PNP’s proposals was the enabling of private medical practitioners across Jamaica to provide vaccinations to their patients, which the Opposition said would provide an effective additional channel for the vaccination distribution system.

In addition, the PNP said the Government should proactively enlist major social influencers (such as leading churchmen, sports personalities and entertainers) for strident messages to persuade hesitant Jamaicans to get vaccinated, as well as publicise the testimonials of doctors on the hospital frontlines as to the overwhelming prevalence of unvaccinated patients among those who are dying or falling seriously ill.

This, Guy said, would provide stark and compelling encouragement for vaccination.

The Opposition said it was demanding that the Government immediately recommence meetings of the
parliamentary committee on COVID-19, “so that it can focus on devising containment strategies
for the runaway COVID positivity rates, illnesses and deaths”.

On Monday, Jamaica recorded 10 more COVID-19 deaths and 316 new cases. Overall, the nation has confirmed 1,241 deaths and 55,456 cases of COVID-19 since the first case in March 2020.