“We are in grave danger, to put it bluntly.”

That’s the frank assessment of Medical Association of Jamaica (MAJ) President Dr Andrew Manning as the island saw a record high 46.1 per cent positivity rate in COVID-19 testing on Sunday, as reported by the health ministry on Monday.

The positivity rate is a percentage of positive results among the gold-standard PCR tests plus antigen tests conducted in the public sector daily and the World Health Organization uses a benchmark of five per cent or lower to indicate a country effectively managing the deadly pandemic.

But with Jamaica’s rate more than nine times that benchmark, there is serious concern among doctors and in the private sector that the local situation could become explosive really soon as the island is teetering on the brink of a major public health disaster.

MORE