(Jamaica Observer) Barely a month after announcing relaxed COVID-19 measures the Jamaican Government was on Monday forced to back-pedal, pushed by rising infections numbering an average 135 new cases per day with a staggering 1,318 new cases already recorded for the month of July alone.
Consequently, Jamai-cans will for the next two weeks at least, experience tighter curfew hours as the Administration seeks to reduce the amount of time allowed for movement.
The new measures attracted mixed reactions among the business sector, with some people saying that they would negatively affect operations, while others argued that the Government had no choice and did the right thing.
Only last Tuesday Prime Minister Andrew Holness had hinted that, based on the uptick in cases islandwide, the Government would have to rein in nationals earlier than August 10 when the latest set of measures were set to expire.
Addressing the nation yesterday afternoon, Holness said, based on the rapid increase in infections being seen, it was clear that the Government “needs to act now”, especially given plans to reopen schools for face-to-face instruction in September.
He further warned that on August 11 when the preliminary measures which take effect today expire, the Government might introduce even tighter measures if the infection rate shows no sign of slowing. As for the reproductive rate which shows how fast the virus is spreading by measuring how many additional people are infected on average by one infected person, that is now at 1.4. Epidemiologists have said that this figure needs to remain below 1 for at least a six-week period.
Effective today the all-island curfew hours will run from 8:00 pm to 5:00 am Monday to Saturday and commence from 3:00 pm to 5:00 am for Sundays and public holidays.
The curfew for the Emancipation Day holiday (officially Sunday, August 1) but which will be observed on Monday, August 2, will commence at 3:00 pm that day and will end at 5:00 am the Tuesday. The curfew for Friday, August 6, Independence Day, will also begin at 3:00 pm ending 5:00 am the Saturday.
