(Jamaica Observer) Prime Minister Andrew Holness warned yesterday that the country is the closest it has ever been to going into lockdown since the novel coronavirus pandemic hit the country in March 2020.
He told a virtual press conference from Jamaica House that the Government had done its best to balance the economy and the public health crisis at the same time.
“The Government has always acted based on evidence; we have always acted in a situationally appropriate way. We don’t act more than what is necessary, so the measures we have put in place have [been] given three weeks for them to work; if they don’t work then there will be more measures to come. A lockdown is not off the books; we have never been this close to it, but we are very close to it now,” he stated.
“Your need to party and to be free and to go about not wearing your mask has to be balanced against the need of someone who will be deprived of care because we simply have no [hospital] beds. My conscience is clear that we have done all that we can in balancing lives and livelihoods. At this stage, the equation and the balance has now shifted to saving lives,” said the prime minister yesterday, shortly after Jamaica’s first shipment of 50,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, a gift from the Government of India, arrived at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston.
