Editorial | Heading off the spike in COVID-19

The recent warning by the Jamaican authorities that the COVID-19 virus is still alive, and of the likely surge by its newer variants this time of year, was an important public health intervention. So, too, was their advice that people vaccinate against the coronavirus.

But despite this timely hoisting of a warning flag, the health ministry is not being sufficiently aggressive in telling Jamaicans, especially older people, about the risks they face. Put another way, the health ministry’s public information messaging is entirely too muted. The call for at-risk groups to be vaccinated, or to receive booster shots, is very faint against the din of Christmas.

The ministry no longer publishes daily counts of COVID-19 infections and deaths. Neither do its weekly reports provide the break-outs that provide demographic profiles of the victims of the virus.

What is known, however, is that up to December 19, 3,461 people – including nine the preceding seven days – were confirmed to have died from COVID-19 since the first case was reported in March 2020. Another 295 deaths were deemed coincidental to the virus. A further 353 deaths were under investigation.

Overall, up to the date of the report, 152,758 Jamaicans were known to have contracted the virus, 47 of them during the review period.

Significantly, the positivity rate for infections was 3.7 per cent, up nearly a full percentage point from the previous week’s 2.8 per cent.

SAFE ASSUMPTION

Here is a very safe assumption: the infections and positivity rates represented a significant undercounting of new COVID-19 cases in the island.

Jamaica was never among the most aggressive testers for the virus. Now, it tests even less, following the Government’s reopening of the economy nine months ago. That situation is complicated by the low rate of inoculation against COVID-19 among Jamaicans.

While health officials have injected around one and a half million doses of vaccines, only a bit more than 743,000 Jamaicans, approximately 27 per cent of the official population, are fully vaccinated. That is, they have received either a single-dose vaccine or the two doses of one that requires two jabs.

Further, only 41,000, a mere 1.5 per cent of the population, had, up to December 19, received a booster jab.

Herein lies the potential problem.

According to the Government’s chief medical officer, Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie, vaccinated Jamaicans, and those who have contracted COVID-19 and recovered, have helped to prevent a sharper spread of the virus in the island. Put differently, they have been a buffer for the unvaccinated.

However, a significant upward movement in COVID-19 cases in the United States in recent weeks – the virus thrives in colder weather – is a legitimate cause for worry in Jamaica.

There is significant travel between the countries throughout the year. But even more Americans, who account for nearly 70 per cent of the island’s tourists, visit Jamaica during the winter season. Some of them, as well as returning Jamaicans, might bring the two Omicron subvariants, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, which have driven America’s COVID-19 spike. In the fortnight before December 15, the United States recorded increases of 40 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively, in COVID-19 infections and hospitalisations.

“We do expect that there is going to be an increase in the number of cases,” said Bisasor-McKenzie.

ASYMPTOMATIC OR MILD

Health officials say that the majority of the cases will be asymptomatic or mild, especially in people who are vaccinated, or who previously contracted COVID-19.

Nonetheless, like in the United States, where they account for the bulk of new COVID-19 cases, older Jamaicans are similarly more vulnerable to the Omicron subvariants. But unlike the US, where two-thirds of seniors are already vaccinated, and the issue is to spur them to take updated booster shots, in Jamaica the problem is to get firmly off home base, ensuring that more people, the older population especially, get vaccinated, and if they are already inoculated, to take booster shots.

Indeed, around 13 per cent of Jamaica’s population (more than 330,000 people) is 60 or older. A large portion of this group is unvaccinated. And an even smaller proportion have taken boosters.

“... We encourage persons, especially the vulnerable population, to get the vaccine,” Bisasor-McKenzie said.

We agree. They should. But one-off declarations about the need are not enough.

The health ministry must fashion special public health messages, geared directly at older people, about the dangers of the Omicron subvariants, as well as engage in community-based efforts to bring vaccines directly to those who need them.

Of course, some of this has been tried before. Transformation, however, is often the outcome of hard, consistent slog.