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OPPOSITION Senator Damion Crawford is challenging the Government's approach to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
In a question and answer session with the Jamaica Observer this week, Crawford said while he supports some of the COVID-19 prevention measures implemented by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, such as mask-wearing and physical distancing, he disagrees with the Administration's reliance on lockdowns.
"I don't have to disagree with the direction to disagree with the distance. So the objective that the Government continues to expose about reducing the spread of the virus, saving lives, and reducing the impact on the social infrastructure, are things that I agree with totally. However, the strategy has not considered our culture or considered our realities sufficiently," said Crawford.
"I believe that how he has approached it [in containing spread of the virus] is ineffective and inefficient and, by extension, will lengthen the time that we will be under these types of lockdowns," added Crawford.
He argued that in implementing the lockdowns the Holness Administration has not sufficiently considered some of key social issues.
According to Crawford, even the relaxed lockdown periods announced by Holness last Tuesday of 4:00 pm on Saturdays and 2:00 pm on Sundays, changed from 12:00 pm on Saturday and all-day Sunday, does not consider Jamaica's business norms.
"If you are going to be locking down two days per week I don't believe that Saturdays is a reasonable consideration because there are segments of our society that make a week's earning on a Saturday only. Those segments include the hairdresser, the barber, the market vendor... and a day's worker who can only come to my house when I am there or when I am available.
"If you are going to be selecting a day for an extended partial lockdown, Saturday is one of the worst days as you are reducing some people's earning ability to almost nil," charged Crawford.
He accepted that whichever day of the week selected by the Government to impose the most stringent lockdown would draw criticisms but argued that as it is now, "those who are least able to bear the impact are the ones who are most burdened and that is an unfortunate reality".
Crawford added: "When you look at what is happening, persons like myself, whose business is a Monday to Friday business, we have gotten all five days, on the contrary the... people who are disproportionately dependent on a Saturday they have gotten half of a day and that is an unfortunate and unfair reality."
The outspoken politician, who is a vice-president of the Opposition People's National Party, charged that the Government has ignored the data which show that the workplace cluster is one of the areas where most people (30 per cent) say they contracted the virus, while 20 per cent say they got it from public transportation.
"In all of these lockdowns there has been insufficient targeting of public transportation and the workplace. In fact, unfortunately, the prime minister seems to be blaming those who are unemployed when the majority of people say they got it from a workplace," said Crawford as he pointed out that only eight per cent of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 said they got it from a social event, while only three per cent said they got it from the church.
He argued that the lockdowns unfairly target social events and church services.
"What we have is a situation where the prime minister decides what is important and in many cases we have churches closing but race horse happening. Therefore, it is right for me to say your decision of importance is incorrect," said Crawford.
"In as much as [the prime minister] in his right - having won the [general] election and having won handsomely- decides how to implement policy, I am offering a critique of that policy," declared Crawford.