Prime Minister Andrew today (January 11) announced the extension of current COVID-19 restrictions for another two weeks, as the country saw another record number of new cases -1,714 – on Monday.

The prime minister’s decision, announced in Parliament, was supported by Opposition Leader Mark Golding who acknowledged that the current fourth wave of infections justified continuation of the current measures, including a 10 pm to 5 am curfew ending January 28.

Since the start of the pandemic, Jamaica has seen 105,172 overall confirmed infections and 2,502 deaths.

During his presentation, Holness pleaded with Jamaicans to continue to take precautions and to get vaccinated.

He stressed that, even though the number of breakthrough infections (infections among persons who have been vaccinated) has significantly increased with what appears to be the arrival, though not yet confirmed, of the Omicron variant on Jamaica’s shores, it was still essential for Jamaicans to get vaccinated.

“The facts are 98 per cent of the persons in hospital are unvaccinated and 98 per cent of the deaths are among the unvaccinated,” the prime minister said.

“We are now contending with the Omicron variant. Just two weeks ago there was news that a new variant has been identified in France. All this only reinforces what we have been saying all along, that the SARS COV2 virus is here to stay. WE therefore need to learn to live with COVID-19, at least over the medium term. COVID-19 will be with us.”

Holness noted that, were it not for the current fourth wave, he would have wanted to come to Parliament to announce a further relaxation of restrictions, along the lines of his commitment last November, to further get the economy rolling again.

He said, however, that the decision was taken that, though the severity of illness and rate of hospitalisation has not appeared to be as high as during the onslaught of the Delta variant, there should be further monitoring of the impact of the fourth wave before making any changes to the restrictions.