Peter Espeut | Analysing all the risks

Flying into any US port of entry, non-US citizens (we are called aliens) must be photographed and fingerprinted; if we refuse, we will be denied entry into the USA. Citizens of the USA only show their passport on entering their country, as it is illegal for the US government to fingerprint US citizens unless they are being charged with a crime. There are benefits in the USA to being a US citizen.

Let me say up front that I am in support of the reopening of Jamaica’s ports to the return of Jamaicans, and also for non-Jamaicans who wish to visit and experience our natural environment and powerful culture; but not in such a way as to put the lives and health of Jamaicans living here at risk. And I do not approve of discrimination against Jamaicans by treating them more harshly than non-Jamaicans; there must be benefits in Jamaica for being a Jamaican citizen.

Mandatory testing

Last week (on June 1), Prime Minister (PM) Andrew Holness announced that all Jamaicans entering their homeland must be tested for COVID-19, and be quarantined under government supervision to await the test results. The prime minister also announced that from June 15 (Monday coming) non-Jamaicans (i.e., tourists) entering our homeland will not face the requirement to be tested, but will be screened (in similar manner as supermarkets) by having their temperature taken, and also face questions about their travel history. Clearly, in Jamaica there is more advantage to being non-Jamaican. The Jamaican Government plans to discriminate against its own citizens.

Reporting on the PM’s announcement, a release on the website of the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) dated June 1, 2020 offers a qualification: “Countries that have a similar management and profile result for the epidemic regarding spread, death rate, infection prevention and control measures, contact tracing protocols and other such criteria could constitute a ‘travel bubble’ that would determine the protocols that would apply to their entry,” said Holness.

The JIS release goes on: “Nationals seeking to re-enter Jamaica from countries within this ‘travel bubble’ may not need to be tested on arrival. However, they would be subject to health status screening.”

“Persons entering from countries outside the ‘travel bubble’ will be subject to testing”.

The following day (June 2) the PM announced that the countries inside the ‘travel bubble’ are our Caribbean neighbours, from whom we get few tourists: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, The Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Not included in the travel bubble are those countries from which almost all our tourists come: the USA, Canada, the UK, and those in Europe. According to the PM’s announcement on June 1, 2020, and the JIS release of the same date, arrivals from those countries will have to be tested.

Has PM Holness changed his announced position made less than two weeks ago? If so, why? And if he has not waffled, why is he not silencing his critics by clearly announcing that all visitors from outside the travel bubble must be tested?

In his announcement of the above, to which you can watch and listen on the Internet, PM Holness advises that all these decisions are based on a “risk analysis”, and that he knows that “there is likely to be an increase in our confirmed cases”. Every decision carries its own risks, and is a gamble that in the end we might lose something valuable. Some decisions are trade-offs, where we know we are going to lose something in order to gain something more valuable.

And those things we value most will determine the sort of risks we are prepared to take, and what we are prepared to lose to gain something desirable.

No Value On Our Environment

Because many do not value Jamaica’s natural environment, they are prepared to trade environmental health and integrity for economic gain. We know where that will end.

Because many place little value on Jamaican (black) lives, they are prepared to trade tourism income for more COVID-19 cases, and the inevitable deaths that will result.

With general election on the horizon, the prime minister is obviously a gambling man; if allowing visitors in without testing causes an “exponential increase” in COVID-19 cases, as Minister Tufton predicts, the PM is risking losing the election for a mess of pottage.

Peter Espeut is an environmentalist and development scientist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.