The Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) is urging the Health Ministry to increase its focus on identifying Covid-19 cases to prevent a surge in transmission of the Omicron variant.
The Association is pushing for increased testing for the virus.
NAJ President, Patsy Edwards Henry who says there are significant risks to inadequate covid surveillance, is also worried that a number of persons who are asymptomatic could become super spreaders.
“The fact that it spreads so easily from one person to another and the symptoms are mild - what we are going to have in the coming weeks, is a number of persons who may become infected with little or no symptoms and as a result of that we may have the superspreaders . That is where we are going to have a number of our challenges,” she said.
The Health Ministry has projected that Jamaica could see as many as 1500 new daily infections by mid-January if the omicron variant of covid-19 is already in circulation in the country.
Meanwhile, the NAJ President says the ministry of health should start identifying locations which can be used as isolation facilities.
“Therefore while we want to increase our beds to clear our hospitals the government also needs to start looking at areas again, where we can house our population who do not actually need hospitalization - but would need isolation and do not have adequate facilities to isolate at home,: the NAJ President stated.
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