Portmore ramps up COVID-19 cleansing
Published:Wednesday | April 15, 2020 | 12:18 AMPaul Clarke/Gleaner Writer
The Portmore Municipal Corporation in St Catherine has been ramping up efforts to sanitise public spaces amid the coronavirus pandemic and the confirmation of more than 30 positive cases of the virus at a business process outsourcing facility in the municipality.
On Easter Monday, workers were seen busy identifying, disinfecting and sanitising all major bus shelters across the municipality.
Mayor Leon Thomas, who heads the municipal corporation, said the ongoing work was vital with more than $2 million already spent on the sanitisation programme.
Ackee Village, which acts as the only official market area in the 13-community municipality, was also sanitised under the programme and a handwashing station last week commissioned in Waterford.
“Today, we are out again sanitising because tomorrow (Tuesday), the turnout of people going to work will be greater.
So we are doing a sanitisation right across the municipality,” Thomas said.
The mayor said sanitisation takes place in each area every eight days, adding that all communities will have occasion to be sanitised per the rotation plan now in effect.
GREATER URGENCY
“Based on what is happening here at the [Alorica] call centre, it gives us even greater urgency to go about and sanitise and to see how best we can have our residents cooperating with the announcements from the prime minister and also the health minister,” said Thomas.
He said the handwashing station set up in Waterford would be replicated across Portmore, “especially where our major stops are and [where there may be] large gatherings, so when you are leaving the bus, you will be able to sanitise your hands before reaching home, and when out on the streets you may do the same at the various locations”.