‘Jamaica is not the US’

Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton is cautioning against a narrative calling for children to stop wearing masks, saying that, while he has never discouraged public discourse around matters of national interest and policy, the right to one’s opinion does not mean that such persons should pass them off as facts.

Responding to critics, like Adam Stewart, executive chairman of Sandals Resorts International, who earlier this week polled Twitter followers on whether they believed it was healthy and right for children to be masked for six to eight hours a day with what was dubbed as a “less harmful” COVID variant, Omicron, Tufton noted that arguments surrounding the pandemic have to be guided by the science around the particular issues.

“All of what I have seen ... does conclude that masks, for example, have supported the protection of individuals who wear them against the COVID virus ... and how the virus is spread through droplet interaction,” Tufton told The Gleaner, adding that this still stands to be the case even for children.

He said that, with more students going back to the classroom and having vulnerable, unvaccinated family members at home, there is an increasing risk present, as it is possible for the children to pass on the virus.

“We have the tendency to feel that because all this is changed or prescribed in other jurisdictions, particularly in those that we aspire – [like] our major trading partners – to be like them and enjoy their lifestyle, and oftentimes ignore some of our own realities,” said Tufton.

“Jamaica is not the US,” and would not “adopt rules in a wholesale way”, while ignoring the realities of the pandemic that is affecting Jamaica differently than it is affecting other countries, he added.

“Sometimes we conveniently forget, maybe in our anxiety to try and achieve normality, which I fully appreciate [but] the journey or the path to overcoming this pandemic is different, depending on the jurisdiction that you are in. Jamaica’s journey is very different from the other journeys that have been pursued elsewhere,” he said, adding that Jamaica received vaccines at a later date than the US and that the country continues to still battle with a low level of vaccination take-up.

Noting that Jamaica will eventually see the long-awaited unmasking day, he stressed that, at this time, the Government cannot be guided by what is good for a particular sector, rather, for the overall good of society.

In the same vein, Prime Minister Andrew Holness also slammed critics of the Government’s approach to the pandemic, saying that it would not have been feasible to adopt a strategy of simply boosting healthcare capacity rather than relying on non-clinical measures as was being advocated in some quarters.

“No matter how we increase the capacity, when we get to the point of a wave turning into a surge heading into a peak, ... you can’t pursue a strategy primarily ... of just increasing capacity. You have to have the other clinical and non-clinical measures to contain the spread of a novel virus,” said Holness, noting that it takes a minimum of five years to build a hospital.

Delivering the keynote address at the Bustamante Children’s Hospital during a handover ceremony of personal protective equipment donated by Northwell Health, a non-profit healthcare provider in New York, he said that, at the onset of the pandemic, the Government invested in increasing bed capacity as well as diverting healthcare attention away from other areas of need, in order to concentrate on reducing infection rates.

Long-term increases in health capacity could not occur, Holness said.

But the prime minister accepted that continuing in a state of non-clinical and clinical measures forever would be impossible as more lockdowns, curfews, restrictions on movements and gatherings could not form a permanent solution.

“I can understand your frustration that is building up in our society of Jamaica,” he said, adding that Jamaicans are already challenged with social inequalities and extreme poverty.

“And when you layer on top of that restrictions, which make it worse for those who are already worse off, you can understand the frustration of the Jamaican public and how that frustration has created a negative mood in the populace,” he added, noting that this could have serious mental health implications.

He added that, since more children have returned to face-to-face instruction, many more fights are occurring. This, he said, is a direct consequence of children not being under order and heading back to a situation where they have to be in schools.

“That break in education is costing us dearly and we will have to address that. We have to get back to normalcy,” Holness said.

But this would not be at a cost of persons making “confusing and illogical and irrational arguments, uttering into the centre of public debate” in search of personal validation, which could lead society down a dangerous path, he lamented.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com