MIAMI _ Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who is seeking another five years in office, has decided to suspend his campaign as of Sunday to try to deal with an alarming spike in COVID-19 cases in the country, the country's health minister said.
Holness, who two weeks ago revoked a state of emergency over the novel coronavirus and announced general elections for Sept. 3, will not engage in traditional campaigning like mass gatherings, motorcades and face-to-face meetings and plans to ask members of his ruling Jamaica Labor Party to do the same.
"I think there is a very strong signal that has been sent by the prime minister," Health Minister Christopher Tufton said. "The intention is to minimize, eliminate the traditional approach to campaigning that involves crowds; that will publicly impact the public health risks around COVID."
On Sunday, Jamaica registered 116 additional COVID-19 cases, bringing its national tally to 1,529. Of that, 622 are currently active. The head of the police and at least nine new healthcare workers around the country have contracted the virus.
"The reality is that we have had a significant restriction being lifted in terms of persons coming in," Tufton said. "We have 29,000-plus Jamaicans in home quarantine. And frankly speaking, many persons are not abiding by the protocols to stay home and quarantine themselves from family members and friends. And this is definitely showing up as a cause for the increase we have seen."
Tufton added that some political leaders, despite agreeing to abide by protocols, have been guilty of breaching them.
He called Holness' decision the responsible thing to do.
"I believe that will send a strong message hopefully to the rest of the country; both to the supporters of the political party that he heads but also to others that this is the responsible thing to do in order to mitigate against the possible risks, weeks, or months down the line, of seeing a spike that is linked to political campaigning or political activities ," Tufton said at a late night press conference on Sunday.
As he spoke, the sound of thunder and heavy rain could be heard. Jamaica was experiencing the effects of Tropical Storm Laura, which has triggered landslides in some communities on the island, making streets impassable.
After holding COVID-19 infections steady, Holness' Jamaica Labor Party government has been struggling with controlling the deadly virus.
Some have blamed the spike on the country's decision to reopen its borders to international visitors on June 15, while others have said the alarming surge is the result of election campaigning by both the Jamaica Labor Party and the main opposition, People's National Party.
While Jamaica never fully shut down its economy, it did put in put in place a number of restrictions that were lifted earlier this month to allow for the election. Calling the removal of the measures, which included curfews, "a calculated risk," Tufton said the consequences are currently being addressed.
"The prime minister is very clear: If we find that in lifting restrictions things become difficult, than we have to pull back and gradually manage the process," Tufton said.
The ride spike in COVID-19 cases, he added, was "not linked to political activity" but part of the surge could be traced to social activities around the recent independence day weekend. The reopening of borders and Jamaicans not adhering to demands that they wear masks in public and respect social distancing could also be to blame, he said.
"Once we started to ease those restrictions, there is a sense that persons started to become complacent," Tufton said. Jamaicans, he added, were happy to see the easing of the restrictions but were not sensitive to the needs to adhere to the health protocols.
"Too many of us are not complying," he said.
With only a few days before the election, Holness is taking a gamble that Jamaicans, who until the novel coronavirus, were enjoying a positive upswing in their economy, will reelect him and his party for another term.
He's also gambling that by going digital, it will be enough to reach Jamaican voters.
The virus and the measures implemented to try and control it have made life especially tough in Jamaica's tourism-dependent economy where many still have not returned to work following the suspension of commercial flights.
Opposition leader Peter Phillips and his supporters have challenged Holness' governance of the country before and during the pandemic, while reminding Jamaicans that as minister of finance in the last People's National Party, it was Phillips who launched the country's economic recovery program that rescued Jamaica from the brink of bankruptcy.
Reminding Jamaicans of the country's soaring crime problem, which all governments have had to confront, Phillips tweeted last week:
"The September 3 election will give the people of Jamaica an opportunity between the proud, safe and economically dynamic society we aspire to be or the dangerous road of crime and corruption lead by the JLP."
