Rae Town set for COVID curfew reprieve
Published:Thursday | November 5, 2020 | 12:16 AMChristopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
The special coronavirus curfew imposed on Rae Town on October 23 in response to a spike in infections in the Kingston community could be lifted on Friday, Minister of Health and Wellness Christopher Tufton has said.
The disclosure came during a press conference on Wednesday at the Windward Health Centre ahead of a tour the community by the minister and a health team, as well as Kingston Central Member of Parliament Donovan Williams.
A limited clampdown in Rae Town and Cornwall Courts in St James was installed to curb movement, and gatherings were restricted to six persons.
Tufton said that 120 samplings had returned negative results. The intervention had been sparked by a cluster of 21 cases.
“It, therefore, is likely to lead on Friday to a discontinuation of the measures, and that’s what we have to do. Whenever we have a challenge, we intervene, and whenever we think it’s time to pull back, go elsewhere, we go,” Tufton said.
But even while the special curfews mandate enforcement of social distancing and mask wearing, most people observed commuting on Wednesday flouted the requirement for protective gear.
That resistance to safety advocacy reflects a persistent problem that has faced the Holness administration, with coronavirus cases climbing to 9,326 on Tuesday, with four new deaths taking overall fatalities to 215.
In the meantime, there were 38 more recoveries, increasing the total to 4,704.
Eighty persons are in hospital, with 11 being moderately ill and six critical.
Meanwhile, senior public health nurse with the Kingston and St Andrew Health Department, Charmaine Vassell-Shettlewood, offered some insight into how the health team operates.
“We have been in Rae Town for a total of seven days, and, on average, we have done 1,000-plus interventions,” said Vassell-Shettlewood of the process of fever and respiratory assessments.
Acting Senior Medical Officer of Health Susan Strachan-Johnson pointed out that the health intervention in Rae Town had been well received by residents.
“We have been working with the community doing sampling, and we have also been doing health education. We have trained key informants in the community so they can go out and spread the message to other persons,and we will continue working with them to make sure that we keep the cases down.”