Eighth COVID-19 death tied to Alorica

Jamaica’s eighth COVID-19 death has been linked to the Alorica call centre whose Portmore site was the epicentre of a surge in coronavirus cases that sparked a ramping up of testing protocols and shut down the parish of St Catherine.

That lockdown expires today at 6 a.m.

The deceased is a 63-year-old woman from St Catherine who was a contact of an Alorica worker, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton told The Gleaner last night.

Nineteen employees of the Ministry of Health and Wellness have tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory disease that has disrupted the Government’s response architecture.

This follows the sampling and testing of more than 300 workers from its New Kingston offices, the ministry said, as it disclosed that there were 26 new cases of COVID-19 in Jamaica, bringing the total confirmed infections to 422.

The facility was temporarily closed for sanitisation.

According to the ministry, contact tracing was done, and employees at risk for exposure were tested and placed in quarantine. It added that employees who were directly affected were also provided with counselling and care packages.

The ministry said that additional changes will be implemented at the ministry to include scheduling of employees to reduce the volume of people in office and work-at-home protocols for more of its technical staff.

In the meantime, Tufton announced that the ministry was examining the use of antibody testing for COVID-19 to evaluate the level to which the Jamaican population has been exposed to the highly contagious virus that has infected 3.3 million people and killed more than 234,000. One-third of infected people have recovered.

The current tests being done locally for COVID-19 detect the presence of the virus while it is active in a person’s system. However, antibody tests show if a person previously had the disease and, therefore, produced antibodies that fight off infection.