#KINGSTON, April 22 (JIS): The Government is documenting information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) in order to better understand the virus, improve the management and treatment of the infection, while boosting the resilience of the country’s public health system.
Speaking in a
recent interview with JISNews, Minister of Health and Wellness,
Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, said work is under way to ensure that the
country and the health system learn from the pandemic.
“We have an Epidemiology Unit
headed by Dr. [Karen] Webster Kerr and we are documenting all that is happening…
because we need to learn from this experience and we need to use this
experience to make the public health system more resilient. It is something
that we need to do and it is something that I am pushing for,” he said.
Dr. Tufton noted that the Health
Ministry is collaborating with the University of the West Indies (UWI) to
document responses being generated through a call centre being manned by
medical students.
The Government has instituted
several measures to minimise the spread of COVID-19 in Jamaica, including the closure of all business process outsourcing (BPO)
facilities for 14 days starting Wednesday (April 22); the mandatory wearing of
masks in public, an islandwide curfew
from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. daily; closure of the country’s airports and seaports
to incoming travellers, a stay-at-home order for persons 70 years and older, having
non-essential employees work from home, limiting public gatherings to not
more than 10 persons, the closure of schools,
among others.
The Ministry of Health and
Wellness recommends that persons practise proper hygiene by frequently washing
hands with soap and running water or using a sanitiser, and observe social
distancing by staying three to six feet away from others when in public.
The social distancing rule
is particularly important in preventing persons from coming into contact with
droplets from the cough or sneeze of others who are sick.