A government multi-agency team led by minister without portfolio in the Ministry of National Security Matthew Samuda, and supported by the relevant State agencies — the Port Authority of Jamaica, Jamaica Defence Force, Jamaica Constabulary Force, Ministry of Health and Wellness, Jamaica Customs Agency, and Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency — will process the returning Jamaicans.

This will come at a major cost to the Government which has already spent some $1 billion testing, processing, and quarantining people who have entered the island.

Addressing a media briefing on Thursday, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Dunstan Bryan underscored that getting people into the island at a time when the novel coronavirus pandemic is continuing, is a costly venture.

“It has cost us significantly because [of] the risk management that we have had to put in place to ensure that the population that is coming in does not impact the population that is here,” said Bryan, minutes after Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton had disclosed that one Jamaican who returned to the island after the borders were reopened on June 1, had transmitted the virus to three family members.

The cost of the operations at the airports, the cost to transport persons from the airport to holding facilities in the first instance, then the cost of testing the nearly over 4,000 persons who have been tested since we started to take back persons into the island,” added Bryan.