Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie, says persons who are vaccinated must quarantine if they show signs of having the coronavirus (COVID-19).

            “There is a real risk with the number of variants outside of the country, and these different variants can be introduced into the country and produce a rapid increase in the number of cases,” she notes. 

             Dr Bisasor-McKenzie was speaking at the virtual COVID Conversations press conference, held last Thursday.

             She pointed out that persons who are vaccinated can still become infected with the virus and transmit.

            “The purpose of quarantine is really an observation period to see if persons who have been exposed to COVID-19, if they do develop symptoms, that you keep them away from the general population to prevent the population’s risk of exposure,” the CMO said. 

            “Why is that necessary? Because we don’t have enough of our population that is vaccinated, that is protected from that risk of exposure. The number of variants of concern that  are out there means that the introduction of any of these more transmissible variants in the country can give rise to the potential of exposure to the population and rapid spread in the population,” she said. 

            Jamaica has established that it has the United Kingdom variant and there is a significant number of persons who have that variant.