Prime Minister Andrew Holness says the Government has no plans to shut down the country again as Jamaicans must now face living with what is now an endemic phase of the novel coronavirus spread.

He made the declaration despite noting that the Government expects and is preparing for a possible fourth wave of infections, which is likely in January, just after the Christmas season.

The prime minister noted that some cases of exposure to the novel coronavirus have been reported since about half of the island’s public primary schools resumed face-to-face learning last Monday, but was clear that there is no turning back.

“The Government continues to act in the best interest to preserve lives and livelihoods as best as possible. We are being very cautious in reopening. Just to be clear, we are not going to shut down again. We have reopened our schools [and] we have seen cases reported of possible exposure to COVID-19. We tell them to sanitise, clean up, isolate the child, but we are not going to close the schools again. It is what it is. If it is we have reached this level of frustration with the measures, we can’t continue to have that, so we have to take down the measures, we have to do so gradually, and we will face the brave new COVID world where it is your responsibility to maintain social distance, sanitise, do your own surveillance and find a way,” Holness stated.

He said, also, that there will come a point when there are only a fixed number of hospital beds designated for COVID-19 patients as services to other patients have suffered because of the strain on the public health system.

Jamaica has recorded 90,341 cases of COVID-19 since March 10 last year and 2,331 deaths. There were 358 people in hospital up to yesterday. Of the number of people infected, 61,024 have recovered.

Yesterday, Holness re-emphasised that Jamaicans must now assume full responsibility for their protection against COVID-19.

“We know how to cope after almost two years of pleadings and exhortations and measures… we now have all the vaccines that we need. Access to the vaccine is no longer an issue,” he stated, pointing out that, even at this endemic stage, COVID-19 still needs to be managed.

The health and wellness ministry reported that up to 5:00 pm yesterday it had administered 1,058,139 doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Of that number 572,497 were first doses, 420,638 were second doses and 60,974 were single dose.

Holness lamented that Jamaica is still lagging well behind the region, with a vaccination rate so low that it has not had an impact on transmission of the virus. He said there has been a slight uptick in take-up with the reintroduction of the Pfizer vaccine. The ministry is now offering first and second doses of Pfizer to Jamaicans aged 50 and older.

Meanwhile, the prime minister announced updated COVID-19 containment measures effective for another three weeks, from November 18 to December 9. The nightly curfews will now begin at 9:00 and end 5:00 am the following day. The gathering limit for churches, weddings, and annual general meetings have been increased from 50 to 100, and burials from 15 to 20, while events hosted by public entities remain restricted at 50 people. The general gathering rule of 10, however, has not changed, the prime minister advised. This means no more than 10 individuals should be gathered in one location, including at events, notwithstanding the gathering limit for the particular event.

Also, as of November 18, fully vaccinated people who have a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, no older than 72 hours prior to entry to the island, will not be required to do another PCR test after arrival in order to be released from quarantine early. Antigen tests are still acceptable but fully vaccinated individuals would need to either quarantine for eight days or do a PCR test to be released early from quarantine. The 14-day quarantine remains in place for unvaccinated individuals.