Jamaica Ranked among Most Prepared Nations according to this Report

There is a small hemispheric club that includes Jamaica, El Salvador, Peru and others that responded early to the Covid-19 Pandemic, with forceful measures that seemed excessive at the time but days after proved to be the right thing to do, for other Countries who failed to act early faced the consequences.

Jamaica was one of the first countries in the Caribbean that started making changes because of the coronavirus.

The country barred some cruise ship passengers, some flights from places where many infected persons were, restricted the movement of tourists, enforced quarantines for all new arrivals and closed schools amongst other measures. The Jamaican Government also put part of an entire town, Bull Bay and a section of Clarendon on lockdown.

Did the Measures Help?
Now, while Jamaica has 30 coronavirus cases, Cuba has 48 and the Dominican Republic has at least 312, a Pan American Health Organization, PAHO report revealed.

Health professionals say such draconian, isolating measures are the only true safeguard against the very contagious novel virus, it’s still early days.

The measures used caused Jamaican hospitals to be less burdened than the hospitals in other countries and the Government had time to get organized.

The measured response caused the Government to buy ventilators, protective gear and hospital beds, explained Health Minister Christopher Tufton, just in case they are needed in the future.

The Minister of Health decided it was important to have the tests in place and he also implemented fairly strong measures to reduce the spread of the virus, which started with public education, and then graduating into other restrictions in order to contain it, even while he prepares the public health system to deal with the inevitable.

The country is now under a partial shut-down and the people are practicing social distancing and hand washing.

See worldwide Coronavirus stats below