New year ends mandatory work-from-home for Jamaica

Kingston, Jamaica: As per the announcement done by Prime Minister Andrew Holness earlier this month, mandatory work-from-home guidelines ends today, on the last day of 2021.

On December 7, 2021, while making the announcement in the House of Representatives, he cited, “There has been a lot of concern regarding the loss of productivity that this measure is having. We need to get back to normal, but of course, to do so safely”.

“This is not to say that we are abandoning work from home totally; it will be an option, but not a requirement”.

This means that workers will now return back to their offices from January 3, 2022, for full working days.

He noted that this decision has been taken by the Cabinet after the island witnessed a decrease in the daily COVID19 infections.

He noted further that a few private commodities indicated that it was time that they bring their staff back to the office.

COVID-19 rate in Jamaica:

Since the pandemic started, Jamaica recorded more than 93,591 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus. A total of 2,470 individuals lost their lives to the contagious viral disease.

As per to the COVID-19 vaccination rate, a total of 712,466 individuals receives the first dose of the vaccine, which counts for islands’ 24.1 percent of the population.

Meanwhile, 566,887 individuals receive their second dose of the WHO-approved COVID-19 vaccines and are now fully immunised. This counts for 19.1% of the total Jamaican population.

In total, 4,834 Jamaicans received their booster shots, which is 0.2 percent of the population.

Although, the island failed to achieve the target of inoculating 40% of its population by the end of this year. This vaccination coverage target was set by the World Health Organisation -WHO.

Other than Jamaica, the other 5 Caribbean nations also failed to achieve the coverage rate.