Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton, has highlighted that the overwhelming majority of persons hospitalised  with COVID-19 and who fall into one of three categories – moderately ill, severely ill or critically ill – are unvaccinated.

The minister shared the information during his weekly COVID Conversations on Thursday.

Up to Wednesday, January 5, there were 372 persons in hospital with COVID-19, or who are suspected to have contracted the disease as the island is firmly in the grips of a fourth wave of the respiratory virus believed to be driven by the highly contagious omicron variant. It has seen the r-naught [the rate at which one person infects another] rise sharply from less than one to 2.4 and the average weekly positivity rate skyrocket to more than 38 per cent.

Of those confirmed positive and in hospital, 39 are moderately ill, 23 are severely ill and three are critically ill. Tufton shared that 32 of the 39 who are moderately ill are unvaccinated, 19 of the 23 who are severely ill are also unvaccinated.

“All three persons who are critically ill are unvaccinated. We wanted to add this segment of the assessment because we need to continue to emphasise to Jamaicans that the persons who are most affected by COVID-19 irrespective of the strain, whether it’s delta or otherwise, are the persons who are not vaccinated,” said Tufton.

COVID Conversations took place one day after Jamaica counted a record 1,128 new infections to push the overall total to 98,194 and 2,486 deaths since March 2020.

Speaking of the level of suffering among unvaccinated Jamaicans, Tufton said that it was a “sobering message to those who are not that you’re at increased danger and you should make every effort to get vaccinated”.

And the minister who said he got his booster shot at the Spanish Town Hospital on Wednesday said it was also time for the country to “frown upon the unvaccinated”. He said he was prepared to offend by saying so.

Meanwhile, Chief Medical Officer, Jacqueline Bisasor-McKenzie, while expressing disappointment at the low vaccine take-up by Jamaicans, said the fourth wave which started on December 20 will run for at least another three weeks and could see a peak week of up to 11,500 infections and up to 300 deaths.

She pleaded with those 60 and over to take the vaccine.