Jamaica is playing Russian roulette with COVID-19

A vial of COVID-19 vaccine
A vial of COVID-19 vaccine (Photo credit: Hakan Nural)

History is not policy. It is 20/20, but backward, vision. It is a useful guide to policy if, and only if, policymakers are prepared to make radical shifts based on the observed outcomes. In most situations, course correction is possible but with COVID 19 and, more particularly, the Delta Variant the probability is that we will be talking about resurrection, not correction.

Three times, July 2020, December 2020, and July 2021 the Government of Jamaica made major changes to its COVID Management Policy. But, in no case were the changes based on analysis of, and projection from the history. Rather they were based on the notion of “act and see what happens”.

Three times we have seen major spikes; each time from a higher platform and hence with greater impact. This third time it has been driven in large measure by a most virulent and deadly variant – the Delta Variant.

Three times the government responded by unilaterally declaring greater restrictions on movement, size of assembly and hours of operation for business and social, including religious, sporting and entertainment activities. Three times the government has said the people must take responsibility. Each time “the people” responded with silent defiance. The reality that cooperation cannot be legislated has not been internalised.

The prime minister has, this time, added his self-determined intention to undertake “political style” campaigning as he did at the last election. But memories of the Prime Minister, regaled in green from “cap to shoes” with throngs similarly attired, can hardly be expected to inspire confidence in getting across a message that all Jamaicans – every man, woman, and child – needs to get on board and take COVID 19, THE VACCINE and THE PROTOCOLS seriously. Frankly, it is likely to divide and should be avoided as much as COVID 19.

All is not yet lost, however. If the government recognizes that doing the same thing over and again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, there is still opportunity to do things differently. In an article published by another media house in April made the assumption that vaccine availability, vaccine hesitancy and the logistics of vaccine administration would have been the main challenges. While there might have been some changes in the challenges several of the suggestions we made would still hold.

The issue of availability would have changed positively, if it is true, that Jamaica now has assured access to all the vaccines it needs. We hope however that “needs” here is not based on the earlier policy of 60 percent coverage by March 2022. The experience of countries like the UK and the US suggests strongly that with the Delta Variant, early coverage of over 80 percent of the population might be required to tame spread, hospitalization, and death. But we leave that policy issue.

We had suggested that very high priority be given to the involvement of local institutions and persons such as religious and community leaders, local doctors and nurses, teachers, coaches, and pharmacists as messengers and, qualified ones as administrators of the vaccine. These local private and community-based institutions should also be used as vaccination centres, thereby reducing distance, costs, and the fear of the unknown. While we were not specific on this in our earlier article, we now stress that large organisations and associations including trade unions should be fully informed and involved as they impact the views, perspectives, and behaviour of their members.

The third wave will, without a doubt, have deeper and wider economic and social impacts than we have ever experienced. The private business sector – large and small –, entertainers, sportspersons and employed workers all have a vested interest in a functioning economy. They must become involved in promoting the activities, actions and behaviours which will help the suppression of the virus. It must be all hands on deck.

To facilitate the strategy for this third wave the government must move from public relations to providing public information; from a mindset of the ministries doing to collaboration and cooperation and from large centralized “blitz” to “blanket” actions across communities.

The current state where all – the government and various segments of the population – are seeking to outsmart each other amounts to playing Russian roulette with a dangerous enemy which none of them can see and which has no regard for any of them. It is that mentality that must be broken and that is only likely when all recognize that there are no prizes and that success is only possible with participation, cooperation and collaboration.

Byron Blake is former G77 and China negotiator on sustainable development.

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *