Jamaica Now Has 105 Cases of COVID-19, 31 from one Call Center, St. Catherine Lock-Down

Jamaica now has a total of 105 cases of COVID-19 after the Minister of health Dr. Tufton confirmed at Jamaica’s latest press briefing that 32 new persons were tested positive over the past 24 hours, the new cases had 5 males and 27 females with an age range from 19 to 70 years old.

New cases are from St. Catherine and Kingston and St. Andrew.

34 cases are currently under investigation, 31 of the new 32 additions have been linked to a call center, Business Process Outsourcing firm Alorica in the Portmore area. 787 individuals work at the location, 258 of which have been interviewed and sampled.

A total of 65 tests were returned with 32 persons testing positive for COVID-19. The establishment is currently closed while investigations continue with regards to contact tracing.

The company revealed that, the worker who tested positive was not seen at the Portmore site since April 6. Alorica has five other regional locations and there was a temporary suspension of operations at the one in Dominican Republic offices last month.

St. Catherine is expected to see a spike in the spread of the virus as a result of the outbreak which took place at the Call center in Portmore, St Catherine.

ST. Catherine will now go through a 7 day lock-down, starting at 5am Wednesday morning April 15th through to 5am Wednesday April 22nd.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness also stated that this is a start of more likely lockdowns base on the spread.

“tan a yo yaad” Said PM Holness with regards to persons who may feel ill, “you are not required to go to work no matter how essential you are, if you are ill stay home”.

There will be penalties for persons who spread the virus in the workplace or in other gatherings.

19 persons have recovered from COVID-19 in Jamaica, 4 persons, unfortunately, passed away. The PM also hinted that St. Catherine’s Lock-down may extend to 14 days if needs be.

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