Bartlett threatens shutdown of COVID rule-breakers
Published:Monday | July 20, 2020 | 12:27 AMJanet Silvera/Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Hotels and other industry operators that fail to comply with health and safety protocols designed to facilitate the phased reopening of the tourism sector will be shut down, says portfolio Minister Edmund Bartlett.
The minister issued the stern warning to stakeholders during a tour of the Golf View Hotel in Manchester and the opening of Phase 2A of the South Coast Resilient Corridor last Friday.
Bartlett re-emphasised in a press statement that the admonition was a blanket mandate, “whether you’re big or you’re small”. He said that those who flout the rules would feel the consequences whether for the “little man”, the “medium-size man”, or the “big man”.
Bartlett underscored the importance of tourism interests working in collaboration with various ministries and agencies, including the tourism and health and wellness ministries, in containing the new coronavirus “to keep Jamaica safe, secure, and seamless for ourselves first and our friends and visitors”.
He told The Gleaner on Saturday in Montego Bay that a team comprising government personnel and private-sector stakeholders has been put in place to monitor and ensure compliance.
“So the message to the south coast is that this corridor is going to be managed as tight, if not tighter, as we are trying to manage the northern corridor, and breaches within this corridor are going to be met with very strong action,” Bartlett said.
Jamaica reopened its borders on June 15, with a Resilient Corridor running from Negril in the west to Portland in the east.
Bartlett urged the guardians of Jamaica’s COVID-19 response to be strong in their resolve “because we recognise that we’re operating in a global community that is still not compliant fully”. He described the spread of the virus in Jamaica’s source markets as “frightening to some of us”.
That may have been a veiled reference to the United States, which has recorded approximately 3.8 million COVID-19 cases and more than 142,000 deaths.
Jamaica has tallied 774 coronavirus cases and 10 deaths since March 10.