KINGSTON, Jamaica — Employers and employees are being encouraged to continue maintaining infection prevention and control measures when Jamaicans begin to return to work, after COVID-19 subsides.

This advice comes from the Director of Health Promotion and Protection Branch in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Dr Simone Spence, who was addressing a digital press conference via telephone on Wednesday (April 29).

“We have to make sure, as both employees and employers, that we are practising infection prevention and control measures… in terms of our handwashing practices, especially as people come back into the workspace. Make sure that staff members or customers and people accessing these workspaces have an ability to wash their hands with soap and water, or that we have hand sanitization stations in prominent places around the workplace that both customers and staff can access,” she said.

Another measure, Dr Spence highlighted, is good respiratory hygiene within the workspace, where persons cover their coughs and sneezes and make sure they do not touch their faces in terms of eyes, nose and mouth, especially after having coughed and sneezed; and hands are washed or sanitised, thereafter.

“As we pull persons back into the workspace, we [should] still be maintaining the physical distancing of six feet at our workstations, making sure that as a part of our business continuity plan, we have persons working from home, if possible, conducting our meetings virtually and if it is that we have to have face-to-face meetings, at least maintaining and practicing physical distancing while we are in these meeting spaces,” she said.

Turning to proper mask etiquette, Dr Spence advised that it should fit the face properly and cover the nose and mouth. She noted, as well, that while wearing masks, people should practice proper hand hygiene and all other infection-prevention and control measures, “because wearing the mask alone is not going to offer full protection”.