More than 4,000 new COVID cases in seven days

Jamaica's Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie says members of the public need to take personal responsibility for stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Speaking at yesterday's latest COVID Conversations press conference, Bisasor-McKenzie pleaded with Jamaicans to play their part in fighting COVID-19.

"Not because there's a party you have to go to it, and not because you can go into a crowded taxi you have to do it. People have to take responsibility and recognise that it is their actions that are taking us where we are in terms of these high positivity rates and they really just need to stop. Don't let it have to be that we have to impose national restrictions to do so. It is time for us to all take that personal responsibility," she said. In the last seven days, the country has recorded 4,163 new cases of COVID-19, averaging about 594 cases a day.

Bisasor-McKenzie said ideally the public would restrict themselves so the Government would not have to. "What we would really want to see is that instead of having to impose national restrictions, that persons would take this personally and impose on themselves that personal restrictions and those personal measures that would prevent exposure and spread."

One of the restrictions that the Government has put in place is the implementation of no-movement days. So far, the country has seen four consecutive no-movement weekends lasting from Sunday through to Tuesday.

"We certainly believe that the no-movement days have had an impact. We recognise that during the days that persons do move there is increased congestion and we certainly would want to see that down. The no-movement days do reduce some movement, the percentage of movement that we would have over an entire week period, then you would have decreased movement and therefore decreased opportunity for exposure and spread," she said.

As of Monday, Jamaica has 76,987 confirmed COVID cases with 50,077 recoveries.