NO APOLOGY

Stressing that a recent decision by the Government to relax some COVID-19 restrictions was not solely predicated by the entertainment sector, Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie says the administration is not sorry for the move, which many persons have blamed for the current surge in local cases.

Less than seven weeks after the initial opening of the entertainment sector, the Government pulled the plug on August 9 as the island began to experience a third wave of virus, with high levels of hospitalisations and climbing infection rates.

The entertainment industry has been under fire as videos emerged of large crowds at popular events which flagrantly violated COVID-19 protocols, with members of the public bashing the Government and promoters for the breaches and possible implications.

“The Government can’t regret opening the entertainment sector because some of the same persons who are critical of the Government, like the media, have been saying that this sector needs to get some ease. ... Now that we have a problem, everybody is blaming Government, but the Government took a position. We listened, we met with these people. We got petitions and everybody said, ‘Open the sector, open the sector’,” he told The Gleaner on Friday.

“The Government is not sorry because we did nothing wrong. We listened and we took decisions based on consultations,” he added.

McKenzie reasoned that every facet of Jamaican life contributed to the spike in cases, including breaches in the public-trans-portation sector and of the allowable limit for gatherings.

“The protocols weren’t being observed in many funerals, and the Gover-nment will never say that it was the entertainment sector alone, although they contributed ... ,” said the minister.

Spike started before events

McKenzie found support in Cabinet colleague Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange, the entertainment minister, who also slammed suggestions that the reopening of the entertainment sector was to be blamed for the island’s third COVID-19 wave.

Asked yesterday if large events were responsible for the current increase, Grange told The Gleaner: “That is not true. The spike started before the industry was open. The entertainment industry or the events sector only had two weeks of opening because the first event was I Love Soca and the last event was Dream Weekend, and that was a two-week span.”

When the entertainment industry was reopened on July 1, Jamaica recorded 76 COVID-19 cases and had an 8.8 positivity rate. Two weeks later, on July 15, the country recorded 70 new cases, with a 7.4 per cent positivity rate. This was one day after the I Love Soca festival, which was the first large event to be approved since the reopening of the entertainment sector.

However, by July 29, the number of positive cases more than doubled to 180 cases, with a 13.9 per cent positivity rate. By August 5, which was also the start of the Dream Weekend, the number of new cases soared to 326, with a positivity rate of 29.8 per cent.

On Thursday, August 19, some 556 cases were recorded, with a positivity rate of 38.7 per cent.

Early in August, St Andrade Sinclair, director of the Western Regional Health Authority, expressed concerns about the hosting of the Dream Weekend and other parties as he acknowledged the difficulty in maintaining physical distancing.

“You cannot social-distance when you are in a crowd as that makes no sense,” he said.

He was joined by Lennox Wallace, parish manager of the St James Health Department, who expressed his fears that smaller parties were likely to be staged under the radar during the Independence holidays.

McKenzie revealed that by the second week of July, in excess of 600 illegal parties were held before permits were given since the announcement of the sector’s reopening. By August 8, the Minister McKenzie reported that only 59 per cent of approved entertainment events complied with the stipulated guidelines.

Grange told The Gleaner that small events approved by local municipalities tried to adhere to the protocols although challenged existed.

“I know they were making an effort. Now, I am not saying that everything was perfect, but I do not think the entertainment or the events industry should be blamed for this spike,” she insisted, pointing to cases in the general population of persons not wearing masks, sanitising, or going into quarantine after travelling from overseas.

“There is a certain looseness of communities throughout the island … , so I think it is a number of things that have contributed to the spike,” the entertainment minister said.

Figueroa: No room for adequate spacing

Peter Figueroa, professor of public health and epidemiology at The University of the West Indies, believes that the impact of parties should not be discounted even though other factors may have contributed to the increase in cases.

“You can’t always pin down what is responsible for a surge, but it is most likely that the opening of the entertainment sector with those large gatherings of people not wearing masks, who were there together for hours, would certainly have contributed to this spread of COVID,” he said while pointing out that the western end of the island, where several large entertainment events were staged, has been seeing a significant increase in cases, especially in Westmoreland, where the ministry revealed that the highly contagious Delta variant was detected.

Figueroa added that the easing of restrictions to allow for venues to hold 70 per cent of their capacity would not have allowed for adequate social distancing.

“I pointed out at that time [that] I would not have gone above 50 per cent because whether at church, a bar, or at any indoor gathering, 7 per cent capacity means that you really can’t have any adequate physical distancing in place, so I think that was an issue,” he said.

Yesterday, McKenzie noted that the Government had indicated that adherence to the health protocols would determine the longevity of the sector’s operation.

“Enforcement is not just that of the Government alone. Enforcement is also the responsibility of those persons who are committed to staging events,” he explained.

McKenzie revealed that there are some 1,500 people across Jamaica who have been collecting information about illegal parties, illegal events, and nightclub operations.

“We do have information at our disposal that we are using to determine those who are the violators and what are the actions that can be taken. Let me remind the public that you don’t have to commit an offence today and pay the consequences of that on the same day. The actions can come after,” he warned.

Over the coming seven days of no movement, McKenzie said he is prepared to withdraw the permits and close any place of entertainment found violating the Disaster Risk Management Act.

And despite defending the sector, Grange railed against entertainers who are part of the anti-vaxxer movement spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines among the public. And in spite of complaints raised by the public about the lockdowns, she believes that persons must now display individual responsibility and get vaccinated.

judana.murphy@gleanerjm.com