Panic hits Mocho over COVID-19 fears
Published:Friday | March 13, 2020 | 12:35 AMDanae Hyman/Staff Reporter
The usually busy thoroughfares of Mocho, Clarendon, were hauntingly transformed into a ghost town yesterday over concerns that the alleged father of the first patient who was confirmed as having contracted COVID-19 in Jamaica may have been displaying symptoms of the novel coronavirus.
According to a source who asked not to be named, the woman’s father, who lives in the district of Goshen in Mocho, was extremely sociable and often held events in the community.
When Patient Zero, as the woman is being called, landed on March 4 on a flight from the United Kingdom, she reportedly went to the community to visit her father and they both were observed around the town meeting and greeting other residents.
It is alleged by one community member that when news broke that his daughter was confirmed of having contracted COVID-19, he placed himself in self-isolation.
Ministry of Health and Wellness personnel, along with the police, reportedly extracted him from the community on Wednesday night. Since then, residents have grown extremely fearful.
“Mocho Road Square, you used to have more than 10 persons that if you wanted them, that’s where you find them in the square. That’s an idle square. I have been through the square three times since this morning and there is nobody – deserted completely,” the source, who resides in Mocho, said while speaking with The Gleaner yesterday.
Further, she said that a student from a school in the area who had also had contact with Patient Zero’s father was also taken into quarantine by public-health officials.
According to Romaine Morris, councillor of Mocho, most residents have heightened fear because of the lack of water in the community to practise proper sanitisation.
“The healthcare nurses, they were in the area up to late last night – them and the law enforcement. What the residents are calling for now, though, is water. They want water so they can practise what is being put out as the guide,” said Morris.
The councillor said that the majority of residents in the community did not have running water in their pipes, so they were heavily dependent on water from the trucks and rainfall.