(Jamaica Observer) Prime Minister Andrew Holness yesterday declared that Jamaica has reached its breaking point in the management of the novel coronavirus pandemic and announced a slew of measures to help curb infections — chief among them lockdowns over three weekends.
“Since the start of the pandemic we have doubled our capacity in terms of beds, moving from 17 beds at the start to almost 600 beds presently. Our case numbers remain unacceptably high. Our rate of new hospitalisations is beyond our health system capacity. Our oxygen tanks are in short supply. The hospitals are stretched. They are doing their best to take persons in, as many as they can… treat. However, we should note that we are now at a breaking point. We have reached that breaking point,” Holness said during a virtual press conference last evening.
The situation can only be rectified, Holness said, if people who are presently ill recover and are released from hospitals, and the number of patients being released exceeds the number of patients being newly admitted.
