Professor Peter Figueroa, one of Jamaica’s leading epidemiologists, said that if visitors from the United Kingdom (UK) to Jamaica in the last few weeks were observing strict quarantine measures, the risk of transmission of a new variant of coronavirus would be reduced locally.
Reports in the UK media said that the mutation is 70 per cent more contagious than the SARS-CoV2 strain first detected by scientists in early December.
Figueroa pointed out, however, that there was no evidence that the new variant was more virulent or made people any sicker.
The public health professor said that if established protocols such as the wearing of masks in public, washing of hands and physical distancing are observed, the virus will be contained.