The Stay at Hotel document....
is essentially a case of having a bunch of forms already printed by one Ministry and the other Ministry overriding the wording. The Ministry of Health printed the documents and the Ministry of Tourism now wants them to say "stay in the corridor", not your hotel. The next batch of forms should have the correction.
This goes back to the "Phase 1" idea of staying at your hotel until your results came back. That is why it asks you to stay at your hotel. Everyone was being tested and everyone needed to sign and obey it and stay at their hotel until the results came back.
Now that pre-testing is being used for high risk areas only, this makes the current wording moot. If you are of the select few who still get tested here, staying at your hotel would be in order but you would be required to sign much more explicit documents explaining your duties until you get your results back.
As I mentioned in the "No in and out" thread, you are required to stay in zone, meaning to stay in the corridor. Places that are being certified to stay have no restaurants and you have to eat so there had to be some explanation to the discrepancy.
So in this case you can regard the "stay at hotel" order to mean a "stay in zone" order. It is not a case of the "message is to encourage noobs and help reduce the desire to roam the corridor" - it is simply too many forms printed but still being used.
And you should never lie to any government agency in any country, nor pick and choose which rules you will obey. Governments don't like that. A tourist just after the borders opened was required to wait for his results. His came back positive and when they contacted him at the hotel, he was out jogging on the beach. The police along with health workers came and got him, fined and deported him.
This is a pandemic so please follow all the sanitizing, social distancing and mask wearing guidelines. We want you to have a great time. But we also don't want any of our visitors to get infected nor do we....
Re: The Stay at Hotel document....
Can't wait to stay "in the zone" for 16 days starting tomorrow!!!
Re: The Stay at Hotel document....
Thank you again for clarifying!
Re: The Stay at Hotel document....
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rob
is essentially a case of having a bunch of forms already printed by one Ministry and the other Ministry overriding the wording. The Ministry of Health printed the documents and the Ministry of Tourism now wants them to say "stay in the corridor", not your hotel. The next batch of forms should have the correction.
This goes back to the "Phase 1" idea of staying at your hotel until your results came back. That is why it asks you to stay at your hotel. Everyone was being tested and everyone needed to sign and obey it and stay at their hotel until the results came back.
Now that pre-testing is being used for high risk areas only, this makes the current wording moot. If you are of the select few who still get tested here, staying at your hotel would be in order but you would be required to sign much more explicit documents explaining your duties until you get your results back.
As I mentioned in the "No in and out" thread, you are required to stay in zone, meaning to stay in the corridor. Places that are being certified to stay have no restaurants and you have to eat so there had to be some explanation to the discrepancy.
So in this case you can regard the "stay at hotel" order to mean a "stay in zone" order. It is not a case of the "message is to encourage noobs and help reduce the desire to roam the corridor" - it is simply too many forms printed but still being used.
And you should never lie to any government agency in any country, nor pick and choose which rules you will obey. Governments don't like that. A tourist just after the borders opened was required to wait for his results. His came back positive and when they contacted him at the hotel, he was out jogging on the beach. The police along with health workers came and got him, fined and deported him.
This is a pandemic so please follow all the sanitizing, social distancing and mask wearing guidelines. We want you to have a great time. But we also don't want any of our visitors to get infected nor do we....
Rob... no objections here... i agree that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing (old Jamaican saying)... but if I know how to circumvent any hurdles of government bureaucracy then I will take the opportunity to make my travel that much more seamless...
FYI..the forms are NOT printed, they are all on digital tablets... with the phases changing so rapidly, i believe its a case of the staff not being updated with the new policies, as swiftly as we (common sense, Global pandemic aware citizens) are. To question "why do I have to stay on property?" When they haven't even confirmed where I'm staying just causes more turbulence than is necessary.. I just nod my head and go about my business... now.. if i haven't been traveling here for over 30 years, then yes... I might question it not knowing or understanding the parameters of my ability to be mobile in the resilience corridor. But if I'm a new tourist, this might raise my anxiety and a sense of fear that I'm confined to a property.
My family is from Jamaica and I have been traveling here for over 30 years. If answering yes/no to some outdated questions is illegal... then come arrest me...
My mask is on, and I am social distancing when necessary. But please do not ignore the fact that the tourism industry has a lot at stake, so placing additional restrictions on tourists (who do not know better) will benefit the industry and the island... I (fortunately) just know better and have experience traveling the Caribbean.
Re: The Stay at Hotel document....
Yesterday, when I finally got a hold of someone at the Ministry of Health, I asked about the "stay at hotel" document and she immediately called it a form. Being digital, that now makes sense. Not being a physical document also explains some of the explanations I was receiving.
She mentioned no senior staff was available to talk as they are in the process of the procurement of two new testing machines to clear the 10,000 sample backlog by the end of the month. From the Gleaner:
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/l...klog-month-end
On Thursday, the Minister of Health found himself in a scandal which had now occupied more of his time. He held a press conference where he spoke about it, to the chagrin of Permanent Secretary Dunstan Bryan. Also from the Gleaner:
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/l...wife-market-me
The woman I spoke with said that there are procedures that they need to follow before they can change the wording on the form and that the Ministry of Tourism is about to open attractions which would necessitate further changing the wording of the form. She did mention that the Ministry of Health had more pressing issues at the moment and that the changes would be made as soon as possible. I suppose a scandal can do that.
Since the online form had been called a document here, I wrongly assumed it was a paper document and that part of the procedures was the actual printing. Turns out the ink and paper had nothing to do with it. Phase changes, re-openings, backlogs and a scandal are slowing the process.
The Ministry of Tourism had a much more relaxed attitude when I spoke with them. They said they are getting ready to open the attractions. Since we are in Phase 2A with the opening of the South Coast, we will either have a Phase 2B or Phase 3 coming up shortly when the re-openings of attractions commences. They specifically told me to let everyone know that the "stay on hotel property" means to "stay in zone" and not to worry about the present wording on the form.
Re: The Stay at Hotel document....
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rob
Yesterday, when I finally got a hold of someone at the Ministry of Health, I asked about the "stay at hotel" document and she immediately called it a form. Being digital, that now makes sense. Not being a physical document also explains some of the explanations I was receiving.
She mentioned no senior staff was available to talk as they are in the process of the procurement of two new testing machines to clear the 10,000 sample backlog by the end of the month. From the Gleaner:
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/l...klog-month-end
On Thursday, the Minister of Health found himself in a scandal which had now occupied more of his time. He held a press conference where he spoke about it, to the chagrin of Permanent Secretary Dunstan Bryan. Also from the Gleaner:
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/l...wife-market-me
The woman I spoke with said that there are procedures that they need to follow before they can change the wording on the form and that the Ministry of Tourism is about to open attractions which would necessitate further changing the wording of the form. She did mention that the Ministry of Health had more pressing issues at the moment and that the changes would be made as soon as possible. I suppose a scandal can do that.
Since the online form had been called a document here, I wrongly assumed it was a paper document and that part of the procedures was the actual printing. Turns out the ink and paper had nothing to do with it. Phase changes, re-openings, backlogs and a scandal are slowing the process.
The Ministry of Tourism had a much more relaxed attitude when I spoke with them. They said they are getting ready to open the attractions. Since we are in Phase 2A with the opening of the South Coast, we will either have a Phase 2B or Phase 3 coming up shortly when the re-openings of attractions commences. They specifically told me to let everyone know that the "stay on hotel property" means to "stay in zone" and not to worry about the present wording on the form.
Thanks Rob. Your information makes good sense to me. I was operating under the assumption that since this was a new approach to a new problem, there would be lots of changes and updates as things went along. We have a different problem here with no leadership so we tend to parse every word and every action. Being Jamaica, you sometimes have to look at the desired result to understand the actions they are taking.
Got to get better in a little while.
Peace and Guidance
