St Catherine shopping hours to be reviewed - Tufton

Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton says there will be reviews of the current shopping hours in St Catherine, now under a seven-day lockdown.

There was utter chaos at supermarkets and traffic jams in the main towns on Wednesday and yesterday as people tried to stock up on supplies.

Tufton was speaking last night during an Instagram live interview with dancehall artiste Grace Hamilton.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness visited sections of St. Catherine yesterday, where he heard accounts of the concerns of residents.

A tweet from the Prime Minister's press secretary, Naomi Francis, stated that the Holness has heard the concerns and that 'changes are coming'.

Several residents have been pleading for additional days to stock up on necessities, arguing that supermarket shelves have been left bare due to the crowd size.

According to 2018 data from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, St Catherine has 521,249 residents – or 20 per cent of the national population of 2.7 million. The bustling ­commercial and dormitory community of Portmore alone has around 200,000 residents.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Heath announced Jamaica's COVID-19 cases have risen to 173.

Of the 173 confirmed cases, 84 are workers of the Alorica call centre, located in Portmore, St Catherine, and four are contacts of Alorica workers.

For its part, the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has labelled as a major misstep, the lockdown implemented on Wednesday to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus, arguing that, while the plan seemed designed to prevent a spread to other parishes, it lacked strategies to limit a further spread within St Catherine itself.
 

Follow The Gleaner on Twitter and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.