MONTEGO BAY, St James – Spiritual leaders across western Jamaica are hopeful that the vaccines for the coronavirus will result in improvements in the country’s economy in the new year.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused massive economic and social disruption, and has left tens of millions of people at risk of falling into extreme poverty globally.

In Jamaica, hundreds of people, particularly in the tourism sector, have lost their jobs, while many have taken salary cuts.

But with the development, and the administering of vaccines, many are hopeful that the coming year will see improvements in economies worldwide.

Reverend Canon Hartley Perrin of the Westmoreland St Peter’s Anglican Church argues that the availability of the vaccines will make a significant difference in the coming year.

“And even though we in Jamaica may not be able to afford… have access immediately to the vaccines, the fact that our neighbours and our friends who would normally visit us would have access, the chances of curtailment [of the coronavirus] is much greater,” the man of the cloth stated.

“So if we are looking in terms of the COVID-19, notwithstanding the fact that it is mutating into something else, but if we were to stop it in its tracks, then it can’t mutate anymore because it no longer exists. So, if it is that we are looking at that as one of the greatest monsters that we have seen in this 21st century, then I think we are getting better days to come. So, it is my fervent hope that 2021 is going to be a brighter and better year than 2020.”

Prolific preacher and president of the West Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Pastor Glen Samuels, expressed similar sentiments.

“I guess everybody in Jamaica and around the world would be hoping for a COVID-free year, at least for the most part. I think that there is great hope on this vaccine and I for one hope that it will bring about a change in the unfortunate issues as it relates to the impact of the virus because it has been creating quite a havoc on not only the health workers, old people, but the entire economy of the rich, the poor, the vulnerable, and mostly the vulnerable. And so, I would hope that there will be a change in their circumstances,” Pastor Samuels stated.

“I am hoping that for the most part it [coronavirus pandemic] will increase our understanding that we cannot depend on human wisdom to survive as a people …that there is a place for the living God in the life of the nation, in the life of every individual.”

Reverend Father James Saturday of the St Joseph Catholic Church in Falmouth, who was also hopeful that “better days are coming”, is grateful that scientists have made a breakthrough in the development of the COVID vaccine

“Next year is going to be a year that will bring tremendous consolation to the people who have been so much shaken in the context of COVID-19. So the vaccination is a great step for hope and to look at the next year, a year that will be colourful, so much brighter than this year. So, I am so hopeful and praying that God’s people will find consolation next year. This year has been so much of a trouble with COVID-19,” the Catholic priest said.

“As we enter into next year I am glad that God has been so good to us and has taken us through this year and we will enter 2021 in God’s power, but also in the power of the vaccine that the scientists have worked so hard in this year to find.”

As part of efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19, the Government, earlier this year, introduced a raft of measures including the Disaster Risk Management Act.

Under that Act, individuals who refuse to follow the established orders and protocols, including curfews and stay-at-home orders, can be fined up to $1 million or six months imprisonment.

But Reverend Revern Grant of the Calvary Gospel Assembly Church in Hanover is hoping that the Government impose harsher penalties in the coming year, arguing that if people adhere to the protocols set out by the Government and the Ministry of Health and Wellness, there will be no need for the vaccine.

“The Government has to do something more and I expect them to do something more,” stated the minister of religion.

“We as a people, if we adhere to protocols then the vaccine would not just throw on us like that, but then nobody wants to stay in. Everybody wants to be up and down having a merry time and then the virus is spreading. So, if the virus is spreading and if the vaccine per se is the answer to the virus and we are saying we are not going to take it, then we are in trouble because we are the ones who are spreading the virus,” Rev Grant argued.

Canon Perin, who expressed hope for the resumption of face -to-face classes, lamented the woes of the outgoing year.

“I am also hoping that if we can get COVID where it ought to be that we see face-to-face school reopen so the children can be back because down the line we are going to face problems in believing that by giving tablets and access to the Internet we are going to solve the problem. No. We will need more than that. We want socialisation, we want the kids to learn how to behave with each other, we want teachers to interface with them and put them on track, so schools need to be reopened,” he charged.

“But this year 2020 has really been remarkable. A Magnitude 7 earthquake, Sahara dust, hurricane that kept south of us but had enough effect to have caused so much damage in St Thomas and other places and then COVID-19. Wow! Not to mention that the murder figures are still alarming and I don’t know how we are going to curtail it because the security forces are stretched, and it would appear that it is going to still plague us in 2021. So, too, the matter of collisions on the road, discipline needs to be enforced.”

Like his counterparts who expressed that above all God is the greatest hope for the people, Pastor Samuels argued that there must now be a greater partnership between the Government and the Church in the new year.

“I hope that as a nation our leaders and our technocrats who plan will look at ways of expanding our economic resilience; will look at the most vulnerable in our society and find new ways of partnering with the Church. Our Government and the governments around the world must understand that the Church plays a vital role in our society and when I say church, I am not speaking merely of the Adventist church, I am speaking of the Christian community… Adventists, Baptist, Catholics, Anglicans, all of us together,” the outspoken Pastor Samuels said.

“And so I trust that 2021 will reveal new ways that we can do stuff and provide, for the most part, relief from this dreaded virus. I really hope we will find an answer and not just to the virus, but an answer to us as a people to become a kinder and gentler society.”

“One of my greatest wishes for the new year is that we will become a kinder, gentler, more caring society.”

“I am hoping that, for the most part, it [pandemic] will increase our understanding that we cannot depend on human wisdom to survive as a people. That there is a place for the living God in the life of the nation, in the life of every individual.”

-Additional reporting by Anthony Lewis