Opposition legislators are vaccinated – Guy

All opposition legislators are vaccinated against COVID-19.

This was declared by spokesperson on health Dr Morais Guy.

The opposition has 22 legislators - eight Senators and 14 members of parliament.

The declaration by Guy came after Prime Minister Andrew Holness last night told a press conference that he could not say if all his Cabinet ministers had taken the jab.

"It reflects poorly on the need to go out there and convince people that vaccination is important. If he's going on a thrust to encourage Jamaicans to get vaccinated, I think his house should be in order first," said Guy.

This morning, Holness indicated that he has since asked his ministers to publicly state their vaccination status.

READ: PM asks Cabinet ministers to declare vaccination status

Meanwhile, Guy is warning that Jamaica will see an uptick in COVID-19 cases arising from the confirmation of the Delta variant in the country.

The Ministry of Health and Wellness announced on Wednesday that 22 cases of the highly contagious variant returned positive among the results of 40 of 60 samples sent for testing.  

“We are going to be seeing a lot more as we have been told two days ago that Delta was discovered in samples that were taken from the first week of July. This means that if you follow the science and incubation of 14 days, it means that Delta was here from in June,” said Guy while speaking at a virtual press conference hosted by the opposition People's National Party (PNP) today.

“Our country [and] our people are and will continue to suffer because we are only seeing the early rise of the third phase,” he warned.

In the meantime, Opposition Leader and PNP President of Mark Golding said that the party is concerned that the imposition of no movement days as part of tighter COVID restrictions will impact the most vulnerable in the society.

He is calling for the Government to provide support to these persons.

“The prime minister must put a mechanism in place for assistance to flow to the families most impacted by the seven days of lockdown. Four of those no movement days are on Mondays and Tuesdays which are normal working days. Many Jamaicans hustle day-to-day to find food. Something must be done for them. Hourly paid workers, construction workers, persons who do odd jobs, vendors on the streets and in the market, they will lose their income on those days. They live hand to mouth, what is to happen to them?”

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