Designating specific polling stations for persons with COVID-19 impractical, says Davidson

 

Public Health specialist Professor Winston Davidson has said it would be impractical for the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) to designate specific polling stations for persons infected with COVID-19, ahead of Thursday's general election.

 

Professor Davidson said such a move at this stage would disrupt existing arrangements and lead to confusion.

 

He said emphasis should be placed on the wearing of masks and social distancing on election day to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. 

 

"Because the majority of persons who are carriers who are spreading the disease, we do not have the particular data, and so therefore, it is pointless in the final analysis. Everybody do their social distancing, put on their masks. Those COVID patients who are proven, all they need is to ensure that they have on their masks; because those that are not proven - that is the ones that are really the massive amount of persons who are walking around with the virus and are spreading it, you have no way of telling who is who...and that number is much much more than the COVID persons whose cases have in fact been proven," he reasoned. 

 

Persons in isolation have been given a one-hour window from 4 o'clock to 5 o'clock Thursday afternoon in which to cast their ballots.

 

Dr. Alverston Bailey, Associate Professor at the School of Public Health, had earlier suggested that the risk to the general population could be reduced if the authorities designate specific polling stations for persons with COVID-19. 

 

In the meantime, Professor Davidson has also suggested the doubling of voting booths on election day.

 

"If the measures that are introduced are so difficult that people have a problem voting, I think that either the voting booth should be multiplied or doubled, or secondly, more time should be given so that everybody in Jamaican can exercise their democratic right to vote," he said.