6 parishes, 300 people - Contact with coronavirus patients spirals as Jamaica declared disaster area
Published:Saturday | March 14, 2020 | 12:00 AMEdmond Campbell/Senior Staff Reporter
The Ministry of Health is tracking between 200 and 300 persons who potentially came in contact with novel coronavirus patients across six parishes: Kingston, St Andrew, St Thomas, Clarendon, St James, and St Ann.
This revelation was made moments after the Government announced a lockdown of communities in Seven Miles and Eight Miles, Bull Bay, bordering St Andrew and St Thomas. The effective quarantine of the mainly coastal neighbourhoods activates legislation with sweeping and extraordinary powers to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, where Patient Zero, a Jamaican from the United Kingdom, who tested positive for COVID-19, resided for a while.
The area will be quarantined for two weeks. Currently, the Government has announced a total of eight persons who have been tested positive for the virus.
At the same time, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has declared Jamaica a disaster area under the Disaster Risk Management Act Declaration of Disaster Area Order 2020, following information received from Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie that the country was threatened by the novel coronavirus.
The announcement came yesterday at Jamaica House where a press conference was called to update the nation on the measures being taken by the Government to contain the spread of the contagious virus.
The order now gives the Government authority to take strong measures such as the Bull Bay quarantine.
EIGHT SYMPTOMATIC
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie said yesterday that contact tracing has detected more than 30 people in the community who have had direct and close contact with Patient Zero. Of the 30, some eight are symptomatic at this time.
The health minister said that a medical team determined that based on information available and the fact that eight persons were experiencing symptoms, there was community exposure which required the raising of the risk level to a community transmission potential.
“In other words, there were a number of persons who were showing signs and symptoms that suggested that they were ill or are becoming ill and that it could be related to that original individual,” Tufton explained.
The implications of the quarantine of the entire community meant that the security forces would effectively restrict movement into and out of the community.
The prime minister said that the health ministry has made provisions to supply food packages and water, as well as medicine, to residents, where necessary.
“We are not treating this as a curfew. I want the citizens there to feel that the State is imposing a security cordon on them. It is for their own benefit as well as the rest of Jamaica’s benefit,” he said.
Drawing on the Public Health Act, Attorney General Marlene Malahoo Forte said that the legislation gives the authorities the right of entry to any private premises to take action considered necessary in the interest of public health.
“This means that if there is suspicion that something is happening in your private places, the minister may authorise entry to investigate. It requires no warrant; it does not need your permission because the step is being taken to prevent the spread of the disease,” Malahoo Forte said.
She disclosed that the health minister was also making additional regulations in relation to the treatment and prevention of this communicable disease, which might give effect to the isolation of patients, and the disinfecting and destroying, if necessary, of buildings where infected persons reside.
“If it’s a stall, if it’s anything; if the powers and the assessment require destruction, the minister is authorised under law to do so,” she said.
Security forces deployed
Members of the Jamaica Defence Force and the Jamaica Constabulary Force have been deployed to the communities and will be managing intersections and access points.
Chief of staff of the JDF, Lieutenant General Rocky Meade, explained that while strict restrictions would be in place where persons have “legitimate reasons to be moving in and out, in such cases, appropriate records would be kept, guided by the Ministry of Health, as to what profile of persons may be allowed to enter and exit”.
In an interview with Bisasor-McKenzie following the press conference, the CMO disclosed that a number of persons from Clarendon were now in quarantine after coming into contact with a man from the same residence who himself was now under quarantine.
“We have several homes within that yard and we have made contact with all those persons. We have identified some symptomatic persons; we have taken those and put them in isolation and the rest of them are being home-quarantined,” she said.