Jamaica Now Has Almost 5,600 COVID-19 Cases Amid Daily Uptick

By NAN Staff Writer

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Sept. 25, 2020: The Caribbean island of Jamaica has continued a steady daily uptick in new COVID-19 cases, adding another 193 Thursday.

The new cases pushed the country’s current tally of confirmed cases to almost 5,600 or 5,588. The majority of new cases yesterday or 101 were women while 91 are men. Overall, 3,020 women have been confirmed with the virus of 74,765 people tested while 2,545 are men.

The majority of the cases are in the parish of Kingston & St. Andrew, where there are now almost 2,100 cases. The second highest number or 1,273, is in St. Catherine followed by 374 in St. James. There are 3,939 active cases.

The number of deaths from COVID-19 in Jamaica moved to 77 yesterday. The latest victim was a 58-year-old female of a Manchester address.

The news comes as the US transported a large mobile field hospital from Joint Base Charleston, S.C., to Kingston, Jamaica to support the Caribbean nation’s ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic and officially handed it over Thursday. The donation, made on behalf of the American people, cost $753,000 and was purchased as part of U.S. Southern Command’s (SOUTHCOM) ongoing assistance to nations responding to the global pandemic in the Caribbean, Central America and South America, and funded by the command’s Humanitarian Assistance Program (HAP).

The SOUTHCOM-funded hospital can house up to 70 patient beds and will support health and public-safety professionals laboring tirelessly to care for patients, save lives and mitigate suffering. The modular hospital is equipped to operate autonomously and includes a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) and ultraviolet-light air-scrubber system, two diesel generators, and eight air conditioning units. Medical teams using the hospital can configure it to isolate patients and conduct surgical operations, if needed.

The command has also delivered mobile field hospitals to Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

To date, the command has funded more than 320 HAP projects, purchasing more than $17 million in supplies, equipment and other vital resources to support the COVID-19 response and mitigation efforts of 28 nations. In total, the U.S. government has provided more than $135 million in COVID-19 response assistance to the region.

The countries assisted under HAP so far are Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay.