Good afternoon I'm Giovanni Dennis with the midday news a special welcome if you're joining us
online at onespotmedia.com the number of confirmed covid-19 cases in the island's penal
institutions is causing concern among inmates and their relatives
now with visitations on hold fingers are being pointed at the wardens Herman Green reports
social distancing is one critical measure to reduce the spread of covet
but the structure of Jamaica's prisons makes that impossible among inmates
it's why visits from relatives were stopped early last year but according to the department
of correctional services website there have been cases in prisons minister without portfolio in
the national security ministry Matthew Samuda confirmed the numbers as we've published um we
have 14 active cases i believe there are the horizon um correctional facility with vermont
center rather and i believe one staff remembered oracle where where he is that's a total of um
15 active cases in a in a population between staff and um inmates of over six thousand with
no visitors coming in inmates have been accusing wardens of bringing the virus to the prisons
wardens have reportedly suggested that inmates may have contracted the virus when attending court
but Mr. Samuda says measures are in place to prevent a spread through court sessions
by having case mentioned dates done digitally and prisoners quarantined or isolated after attending
court physically so are workers being careful Mr. Samuda says yes except for vaccine hesitancy
the level of hesitancy was a little disheartening um but our first target is to ensure that all of
our correctional officers that that want vaccines get access to it we believe that
that will help the hesitancy subside when they see that their co-workers itself you know you
know definitely have a few side effects but come back to work stronger and more protected
we do intend however towards the end of this week into next week with support from the jdf
medical team to offer significantly more access both to our correctional officers
and indeed to our most vulnerable inmates vaccine access an assessment carried out by the health
ministry has revealed a decrease in the number of positivity rate of the coronavirus across the
island in a media release on wednesday health minister dr christopher toughton noted that
the positivity rate was at 10.8 percent now that's the lowest on a record since the start of the year
meanwhile dr tuften says the seven-day moving average for april 21-27 for the positivity
rate stood at 16.3 percent he says citizen behavior no will determine future outcomes dr
toughton is admonishing persons to adhere to the provisions under the disaster risk management act
122 new cases of covet 19 were recorded across the island on wednesday
this pushes the total confirmed covet 19 cases to 45 414 the positivity rate is now 15 meanwhile 220
persons remain in hospital 26 are critically ill there are currently 23 337 active cases
the number of coveted 19 deaths remain at 770. following a difficult 2020 with outbreaks of the
coronavirus at bpo facilities across the island the sector is now seeing an optic in business
last year there was an outbreak at the allurica call center in port morris and catherine
which led to criticism about compliance in the bpo sector it forced bpos to review their protocols
and institute remote work options for their employees but that was met with some backlash from
the owners of those companies and privacy issues fast forward to 2021 and president of the business
process process industry association of jamaica gloria henry says the sector is now thriving we
have rebounded as a sector and we moved beyond our growth numbers that started the year
so you know things are looking up for us we're over 42 000 employees now in the sector
we have new members coming in new offices open up in montego bay right here in freeport
there's a new business that opened recent actually two new entities opened recently
the ministry of education will be implementing an attendance app to monitor the level of
absenteeism for schools in the education minister favel williams gave the details
this morning at a post-sectoral debate media briefing now mrs williams said the app will
be part of the early warning tools to help the minister respond to issues affecting children
and that's why we're going to develop the attendance app so that we have reliable
but also timely information about absenteeism who is absent so then we can
intervene to find out what are the issues and we can find that out early
president of the jamaica association of principles of secondary schools linvern wright says the
government needs to provide more than virtual extra lessons extra lessons that should be
to help an education system that has been hit hard by the kovid-19 pandemic more in this report
two major players in the education sector are calling on the government to do more to address
the education system yesterday education minister fabial williams during her sectoral presentation
announced that her ministry would be sponsoring an extra lesson program to help fix learning gaps she
said the effectiveness of the education system has been blighted due to the loss of critical
contact hours between students and teachers president of the jamaica teachers association and
jasper gabriel says while the new initiative put forward by the education ministry is commendable
the lack of funding is still a major concern that today we still have over 100 000 early
childhood institutions without a trained teacher over 40 percent and i'm talking about um that at
the very base of our education system we have to take this holistic kind of approach to education
instead of picking out a few things and deciding that we are going to be fixing it you mentioned
fixing that from the top it's going to be another nine day one that i can tell you as many other
programs in the past president of the association of principles of secondary schools linvern wright
also has strong reservations he pointed to the myriad of challenges with a current online system
such as connectivity issues lack of technology limited socialization and restricted physical
activity i just want us to be careful because you see to me the ethos of human connection and
what it does in terms of passing on values it's something that we have to be careful with don't
put in the in the virtual space you know i i think we have families for a reason
there's teachers teacher student interaction for a reason i i have no problem if it is used to
complement certain things and we are seeing now in fact internationally you're seeing where virtual
learning is not delivering as it has promised and so i think would be enough for paradise to believe
that it's because of its of its attractiveness there is necessarily effectiveness in it in the
meantime mr wright is recommending that the education ministry conduct research before
embarking on the new approach he has suggested data on at least one year of online schooling
it's hip it's it's attractive that people want to be on it but i would love the minister think
of what it is that is happening now study what is happening now to see what areas it is effective
in and then you can decide that they're going to be using it like that but i wouldn't drop to
just say yes it's it's it's the best things in science but that we should or whatever
i wanted to complement what i wanted to complement in a targeted way we have found that it is
effective and it can work and we use it in that regard ocean masters tpg news and it's now time
for a break here on the midday news but please stay with us we'll have much more when we return
welcome back we're continuing the news
farmers in saint thomas are facing huge losses from a familiar foe the rural agricultural
development authority says dry conditions have caused a return of beat army worms in sections of
saint thomas and it might be too late to stop the adult pests krista campbell explains two acres of
onions on one farm down the drain a big loss from a tiny culprit beet army worms have been literally
having a field day in hartees and logwood in yellowstone thomas this crap here is just
six weeks away from harvest and if if it continues like this we won't have anything
we have loan to pay or we are alone people are going to work farmers say they are
watching helplessly as the pests pillage through neighboring fields they eat off all the leaves and
now that they have eaten the leaves they are also eating the bulbs which is the food and the onions
february are trying to fight it not even food we can buy wanna buy chemical fee for worm senior
plant health and food safety officer at the rural agricultural development authority radha francine
webb says since the major outbreak in saint elizabeth and manchester in 2009 beat army worms
have adapted to climatic and other conditions they have shortened their life cycle based on the
increase in temperatures and the food availability she says the pests have also become tolerant to
all the chemicals which used to be able to kill them and so the saint thomas farmers missed their
window of opportunity to get rid of the worms when the adults come in and lay the eggs on the leaves
the eggs hatch within two days and within a short period of time they pierce the leaves
go inside they feed on the leaf what they can be able to manage are the worms which will hatch from
the egg sacs and the adults with the pheromone trap trenches can also be dug around your field
so that you can target these worms which are coming across as well within the the trenches
either with water or by treatment she warns that the rains which usually follow the dry period
at this time of the year cause rapid crop growth and also increase the worms food supply so radha
wants farmers to constantly monitor the leaves of their crops for worm eggs and these egg sacs are
we're talking about between 50 and 150 eggs and one particular female can lay well over 1500 eggs
so we're talking about quite a number of worms you would not notice any adult worms or any uh the
adult muffs sorry or the worms but the pupa is in the soil and as soon as environmental conditions
become fearable such as when we get a rainy period we start to grow from start to grow then they will
emerge krista campbell tvj news still in the east residents of swamp protein in lloyd's saint thomas
are worried about their safety as the bridge which provides access to their community is on the verge
of collapse they are calling on their member of parliament for help sandy williams has their story
last october when heavy rains battered the island the bridging swamp road saint thomas was not
spared as it was left almost in pieces these cracks in the bridge helped to tell the tale
since then the state of the bridge has only gotten worse it had a foot wide across that foot bridge
is cracked so anything can happen to it if we get something similar to what happened the other
day when we had that flooding residents say once it rains the bridge is impassable once a little
rainfall what is in the riverbed everything will just disappear within minutes plus the the crater
that developed within the middle of the riverbed we will not be able to go across for many ideas
outside we have to park and wait until the river goes down when it goes down we are not sure we
can't even go across them because the middle of it is all cratered out with his emergency case
nobody can move people to paris and now that the hurricane season is approaching the residents are
getting worried worried that this time around they will be left marooned they are calling
on their member of parliament james robertson for assistance to fix the bridge with all due respect
we are asking him please sir if it is any at all possible try your best to see what you
can do for us in this community everybody's even ready yet we can't get a temporary fix
don't buy the food in that we can pass to one from i know that the government have a lot on its plate
but what i'm asking put hospital put us on it too so that we can say well then you guys remember us
when contacted mr robertson said he's aware of the matter and has made representation in parliament
as well as to the national works agency sandy williams tvj news two news overseas india has
reported yet another record number of kovid 19 cases more than 3 600 deaths and almost 380 000
new cases in the past 24 hours the total case count has stopped 18 million more from the cnn
this is a sima puri crematorium where the dead have to join a queue their relatives or friends
have to take tickets from an office in order to get access to the crematorium that is dealing with
about 150 people a day almost all of them victims of the covid pandemic a pandemic
that the government seemed to indicate earlier this year had somehow passed
india by that india had somehow reached the level of herd immunity that even countries
that have vaccinated on a vast scale have not not reached now india is an exporter of
vaccines people here squarely blame the government for this catastrophe that has unfolded
and this after all is a nation that can put aircraft carriers at sea that has a space program
that is the center for many international corporations of i.t and development but is also
a country where there are catastrophic differences between the very rich and the very poor and here
it's been extraordinary because a lot of the victims of this pandemic
have been middle class they're the ones perhaps who can afford to have their families burned in a
facility like this and it may indicate one of the reasons as to why a lot of the estimates for the
number of dead and the number of people in india who've been infected may be woefully inadequate
in sports despite the government announcing on march 22 that the premier league teams will be
granted permission to resume training the premier league association is saying it is yet to receive
anything in writing as a result teams who have acted on the government's announcement
are currently doing so without insurance following the death of a former reggae boy
tremaine stewart on april 18 a major topic that has resurfaced is that of athlete's insurance
unfortunately stewart did not have personal insurance at the time of his passing neither
was he insured by the premier league association of jamaica pfjl according to general manager
of don behold nfc paul christie the last club to it stewart was signed
there was no insurance policy because of the uncertainty surrounding the start of the league
based on this journal inability to get a deal mr stewart's family will not be able to
get any drawdown or any form of assistance as it relates to his burial and life after
him but despite the league yet to start teams have been training and this begs the question
of why the insurance policy wasn't activated as was a previously done by the former company
that operated the league the plca additionally why are players training without an insurance policy
in place well you have a valid point there and i am not able to argue with that fight
so from that aspect yet you are so curricular 100 correct it's a new company with new directors
new set of people so it would require a new policy to take you know but general manager of the pfjl
arlene martin says even though there are plans for a comprehensive insurance policy for all
involved there is no approval from the government for training this was desmond mckenzie minister of
local government speaking about the premier league on march 22. permission will be granted to the
jamaica premier league to commence training in unorganized environment
once the ministry of health has agreed on the the protocols but martin says they are yet to
get a letter of approval for training and as a result like all the commercial partners with
the pfjl this season nothing can be initiated without approval from the government and so we
are in negotiation with or conversations with two insurance companies looking at providing once the
leak season begins comprehensive insurance programs for all the players and for other
persons who may benefit as well meanwhile martin says the pfjl has agreed to partner with the heart
institution of the caribbean they'll be providing services that will include heart screening
what we'll have here is annual screening of the players as well as members of the technical team
and that will cover not only the relevant tests but also consultations in order to identify and
reduce the risk of any sudden cardiac death and there will be additional medical services as well
that would be provided based on the outcome of the heart screening the last player to benefit
from the premier league insurance was another done beholden player shamar niren who died last year
and that's the midday news i'm giovanni dennis join us at 7 for primetime news
on behalf of the news sports and production teams have a good afternoon