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Sunday, January 26, 2025

Jamaica intensifies measures against COVID-19

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NEWS DESK
1794 days ago
20200228
Jamaica's Health Minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, announces the new travel restrictions for Jamaica

Jamaica's Health Minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, announces the new travel restrictions for Jamaica

GOVERNMENT OF JAMAICA

Ja­maica has an­nounced new mea­sures as the coun­try pre­pares for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an out­break of COVID-19.

The coun­try has ac­ti­vat­ed quar­an­tine, screen­ing and oth­er an­ti-virus coun­ter­mea­sures since the out­break wors­ened in Jan­u­ary, in­clu­sive of four ad­di­tion quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties, in an­tic­i­pa­tion of any de­vel­op­ments.

Ja­maican au­thor­i­ties re­port that as at Feb 26, 141 per­sons ar­rived in Ja­maica who had been in Chi­na 14 days pri­or: five per­sons have been quar­an­tined in Gov­ern­ment fa­cil­i­ties; five are in home quar­an­tine; and two per­sons are in iso­la­tion, for whom test re­sults are still out­stand­ing.

Jamaica's health minister meets with a few health workers, as the country ramps up measures in anticipation of a COVID-19 outbreak

Jamaica's health minister meets with a few health workers, as the country ramps up measures in anticipation of a COVID-19 outbreak

GOVERNMENT OF JAMAICA

Ja­maica’s Min­is­ter of Health and Well­ness, Dr Christo­pher Tufton, has ad­vised that ad­di­tion­al coun­tries have been in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the coun­try’s ex­ist­ing trav­el re­stric­tions, be­cause of the fact that the ma­jor­i­ty of cas­es in those coun­tries have been due to in-coun­try trans­mis­sion.

The de­ci­sion was made, based on the lat­est risk as­sess­ment car­ried out by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO)—Sit­u­a­tion Sit­u­a­tion Re­port 37 on the COVID-19—dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 26, 2020.

The re­strict­ed coun­tries are as fol­lows:

• Italy (322 cas­es, 11 deaths);

• South Ko­rea/Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea (1,261 cas­es, 12 deaths);

• Sin­ga­pore (91 cas­es, no deaths); and

• Iran (95 cas­es; 15 deaths).

The Ja­maican au­thor­i­ties add that they are re­view­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Japan, where there are 164 cas­es and one death, and an ad­vi­so­ry on Japan will fol­low short­ly.

The  MSC Meraviglia was denied entry to Jamaica because of COVID-19 risk.

The MSC Meraviglia was denied entry to Jamaica because of COVID-19 risk.

WORLD MARITIME NEWS

In ad­di­tion, the Ja­maican au­thor­i­ties al­so gave an up­date on the cruise line—with more than 4,500 pas­sen­gers and more than 1,600 crew mem­bers—which was de­nied ac­cess to the port of call in Ocho Rios, St. Ann, on Tues­day 25 Feb­ru­ary 2020.

They note that the ves­sel ar­rived at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 8:30 a.m. and, up­on in­spec­tion by Port Health Of­fi­cials, it was dis­cov­ered that a crew mem­ber had been put in iso­la­tion on board. The crew mem­ber had a cough, fever and as­so­ci­at­ed mus­cle pains, to­geth­er with a trav­el his­to­ry to a coun­try of in­ter­est re­lat­ing to COVID-19.

The de­ci­sion to de­ny en­try was in ac­cor­dance with the coun­try’s Quar­an­tine Act of 1951.

Ja­maica’s Na­tion­al Co­or­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee, which was set up to han­dle the COVID-19 is­sue, will host its first meet­ing ear­ly in March and will ex­am­ine all of the pre­pared­ness func­tions of the en­tire Gov­ern­ment ap­pa­ra­tus.

The com­mit­tee is co-chaired by the Prime Min­is­ter and the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, and is com­prised of a wide cross sec­tion of stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing mem­bers of in­dus­try, the pub­lic sec­tor and civ­il so­ci­ety.

LAT­EST AD­DI­TIONS TO JA­MAICA’S TRAV­EL RE­STRIC­TIONS

a) All Ja­maicans who have vis­it­ed Italy, South Ko­rea, Iran, and Sin­ga­pore in the last 14 days will have land­ing priv­i­leges in ac­cor­dance with the law but will be sub­ject to a health as­sess­ment and quar­an­tine;

b) Per­sons who have vis­it­ed Italy, South Ko­rea, Iran and Sin­ga­pore in the last 14 days and who do not have per­ma­nent res­i­den­cy or mar­riage ex­emp­tion in Ja­maica will not be grant­ed land­ing priv­i­leges at any of the coun­try’s ports of en­try;

c) Non-Ja­maicans who have per­ma­nent res­i­dence and mar­riage ex­emp­tions who are land­ed and who had vis­it­ed Italy, South Ko­rea, Iran, and Sin­ga­pore in the last 14 days will be sub­ject to a health as­sess­ment and quar­an­tine;

d) Per­sons who have vis­it­ed Italy, South Ko­rea, Iran and Sin­ga­pore and have been grant­ed land­ing priv­i­leges and clas­si­fied by the Min­istry of Health and Well­ness as high risk will be quar­an­tined in Gov­ern­ment fa­cil­i­ties; and those who are as­sessed by the Min­istry of Health and Well­ness as low-risk will be quar­an­tined at home un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the Parish Health De­part­ment; and

e) In­di­vid­u­als re­turn­ing from Italy, South Ko­rea, Iran and Sin­ga­pore who have been grant­ed land­ing priv­i­leges and who dis­play any symp­tom of COVID-19, as per the case de­f­i­n­i­tion pub­lished by the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion/World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion, will be placed in im­me­di­ate iso­la­tion at a health fa­cil­i­ty.


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