St Catherine to ramp up anti-virus campaign

The St Catherine Health Department has vowed to intensify COVID-19 mitigation exercises to rein in soaring infections in the parish this month.

Chief Public Health Inspector Grayson Hutchinson said that several samples have been submitted to various labs to determine whether any of the highly contagious variants is among St Catherine’s population.

Hutchinson was responding to a question from Councillor Sidney Rose of the Treadways division at Thursday’s meeting of the St Catherine Municipal Corporation.

Citing a report issued by Medical Officer of Health Dr Francia Prosper Chen, Hutchinson said that Wednesday’s 59 new cases brought the total number of confirmed cases in St Catherine to 3,739.

The report further revealed that there are currently 386 active cases, meaning those cases that were diagnosed in the last two weeks.

Spanish Town leads the active-case count, followed by Portmore and Linstead. Old Harbour reportedly has the least number of cases.

This revelation raised alarm among the councillors, prompting Rose to call for a different response to contain the pandemic.

“We are only briefed once per month by the health department, and this does not augur well for us in terms of how we are able to provide basic information to our constituents,” Rose stated.

Hutchinson disclosed that the department would launch an aggressive intervention in Spanish Town proper; at Old Harbour Road; Cumberland Road in Portmore; Bannister; and Marlie Mount.

The chief health inspector included phases two, three, and four of New Harbour Village, Bog Walk, and Linstead as centres on the department’s radar.

Hutchinson said that surveillance, mobile testing, and health education would be conducted in these areas on February 13.