Editorial | Invite stakeholder involvement on COVID-19 directives

WITH THE recent sharp rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in Jamaica – suggesting that the island is entering the phase of community transmission of the coronavirus that causes the disease – the Holness administration faces a major challenge. It has to find the right balance between taking actions to preserve people’s health, while not precipitating a deeper collapse of the economy. The Government, in this regard, should look for help beyond its own counsel, while encouraging creative, solutions-oriented thinking about the problem. And it must act now.

As of April 16, there were 143 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Jamaica since the first one, ‘imported’ into the island, was confirmed on February 15. What is now significant is the recent acceleration in the transmission of the virus is changing profile of the cases. Up to the end of March, there were fewer than 40 COVID-19 infections, with the bulk of these being people who had returned to Jamaica or could be traced directly to such persons.

The new infections, increasingly, are not connected to the initial wave of ‘imports’, emphasised most dramatically by the more than 50 cases – around 36 per cent of all cases – among employees of a single business processes outsourcing (BPO) company, that forced the firm to shutter its two branches in Portmore, St Catherine and Kingston, while the Government had to put the entire parish of St Catherine under a seven-day lockdown. Presumably, a significant number of the employees of the Portmore facility either live, or have significant contacts, in St Catherine, a parish of more than 520,000 people, of whom nearly 40 per cent live in Portmore.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his Cabinet would not have taken this decision lightly. For the action will disrupt people’s normal lives and further slow commerce in an economy already reeling from the global collapse of the tourism industry, a dramatic fall-off in remittances as Jamaicans abroad lose their jobs because of COVID-19, as well as the Government’s previous moves intended to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

NO EASY RECOVERY

The best estimate is that Jamaica’s gross domestic product (GDP), in real terms, will this year decline by four per cent. But some analysts expect an even deeper slump, despite the Government’s projected stimulus spending of a little more than one per cent of GDP. Recovery, as the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, acknowledged this week, won’t be easy for the tourism-dependent countries of the Caribbean.

In Jamaica’s case, this bad situation could become decidedly worse if the Government feels compelled to deepen, and widen, the shutdown of the country, with more stay-at-home directives and curfews, in order, as Prime Minister Holness said, to save lives.

Of course, any such action would be a last resort, which, like any decision about a return to normal business, should have the benefit of broad stakeholder input, with the aim of defeating COVID-19 at least cost to the economy and people’s livelihoods. The process should include doing what we are doing well better, and reviewing those policies whose efficacy, or implementation, are wanting.

The Government’s guidance of the use of face masks is a case in point. A week ago, the administration tiptoed to an acceptance of the efficacy of face masks in helping to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, contained in the droplets of persons with the infection, or the direct ingestion of those droplets by other people. It, however, didn’t adopt our recommendation that face masks should be mandatory for anyone riding public transport or entering public buildings of any kind.

However, it has now said that people in St Catherine, during the lockdown, must wear masks in public, but issued no such order for the rest of Jamaica, where people are still, to a degree, round and about. In some instances, too, the intent of lockdowns and curfews, to prevent crowds and the easy spread of the virus, is undermined by the crush caused by people seeking public transport to be at home ahead of curfew hours.

We have previously proposed a task force to plan the island’s re-engagement of the post-COVID-19 global economy, which will likely see adjustments to existing supply chains, with an impact on some of the sectors, such as logistic hub operations, upon which Jamaica had hoped to stake its future. The Government should immediately establish a task force comprising economic, business, and labour stakeholders to get on with the job. But the group should also have a place at the table when the decisions about economic lockdowns and re-openings, and the protocols therefore, are being made.