Letter of the Day | A lockdown shouldn’t mean a lock-up

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Government must ramp up its communication strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic to avoid chaos. News of the lockdown in St Catherine, and Portmore in particular, due to the spike in number of cases at a BPO call centre, shows that many are in panic mode and may not fully understand what is happening.

Imagine if it were necessary to lock down the entire country for a period, it would be pure chaos! A lockdown shouldn’t mean a lock-up. It means being responsible enough to stay home as much as possible to avoid close contact with others; it should mean that only essential businesses are allowed to operate.

It means going out only when necessary for essential services, food, medicine, supplies. It means practising social distancing in public, washing hands frequently, and following other protocol such as wearing face masks, using sanitisers and generally being more conscious when it comes to hygiene and public health.

Essential businesses should remain open. Why should supermarkets have restricted hours with higher demand? Why should they have to operate using names of customers, alphabet and IDs? This only adds to the chaos. If markets remain open during regular hours, customers can use better judgement and try to shop at different times. There were hoards of people rushing to leave St Catherine to other parishes immediately after the lockdown was announced. Are people so naive they don’t understand that an infected and asymptomatic person leaving still carries the virus and poses a risk to others in the new surroundings?

A lockdown benefits those who might be infected and don’t know it, while helping to safeguard public health, which benefits all! A lockdown also serves to drive home the message about the severity of the situation; it mitigates the risk of virus spreading! This is necessary to better manage the pandemic and reduce the risks to the general public.

P. CHIN

chin_p@yahoo.com