St Thomas residents blame COVID spike on reopening of borders

The decision of the Government to reopen the country's borders to international travel tops the list of things that residents of St Thomas credit for the upsurge of COVID-19 cases in the parish.

The eastern parish, which was among the last to record a confirmed case of the virus, has reported some 89 cases including one death and six recoveries.

A 14-day curfew was yesterday ordered for St Thomas. This will mean restricted movement between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. each day. In addition, no funeral services, civic services, weddings or entertainment activities will be allowed in the parish for the period. Burials will be allowed to take place with a maximum of 15 persons, including the pastoral delegation and burial attendants.

The Government placed Church Corner and the adjoining communities of Lower Summit and Bamboo River under a 14-day quarantine on August 7, following a jump in cases of the virus in the parish, with 28 positive cases over four days, including 13 from the communities under quarantine.

Quarantine communities

Some 89 cases of COVID have been recorded within the parish, 45 of which are within the quarantine communities.

Shane Burgher, a resident of Yallahs in the parish, is gutted by the rate at which the novel coronavirus is spreading throughout the parish. "The news rough man. Sometimes mi blame it pon the prime minister too, enuh, because the border weh him guh open mek the cases dem start spread all over the island," he said. "It's going to get worse because corona is not going away until we get a vaccine and I haven't seen any of that in place yet. So it look like the virus here to stay like AIDS or the common flu." The barber, who was sitting at the doorway of his business place, told THE STAR that since the news that the virus had breached the parish's borders, his business had suffered a huge hit.

Others residents have said that 'licky licky' behaviour is one of the main causes of the COVID-19 spike in the parish.

"One man come the other day and yuh fi see how much people pack up over him yard the next day a look something. Mi have to wonder to myself if dem don't watch the news," one resident said, adding that visitors and returning residents alike should have been denied entry to Jamaica.

Admitting that the new curfew imposed on the parish would highly impact his business, Copeland Johnson of Pondside community, is in full support of the partial lockdown. According to the wood worker: "It says 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. so if me on a site outside St Thomas and 7 o'clock catch me, that mean mi have to sleep where mi deh and that is going to have a lot of damaging effect on me and my business but I have to support it."

He added, "The Government should go a step further and fully lock down the parish, who in stay in and who out stay out. That is going to have a lot of implications but it will also mean that the disease can stay and die here in the parish. No movements. Lock down the whole place, put we pon bed rest since we cyah hear."

Carol Francis, director of House of Carol's Funeral Home in Morant Bay, says the ban on funerals will be a hard hit on the business, but it was a necessary move.

"It (business) has been slow enuh, but recently we have been seeing people come for burials. We have been monitoring the funerals too, because we have to ensure that the right number of people is in the church," Francis told THE STAR. "It a go slow down business, but it had to be done. We have to comply with it."