“Places Where Many People Feel Safe”: Jamaica’s Churches Offer Their Buildings as COVID-19 Vaccination Centres

• The Jamaica Council of Churches said member churches would make their facilities available for vaccination
• JCC president Rev Newton Dixon said churches are places where people feel safe
• Jamaica had recorded 41,400 COVID-19 cases and 631 deaths at the time
• A church leader rejected claims tying vaccines to the “mark of the beast”

The Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC) said its member congregations were ready to make their buildings available to the Ministry of Health and Wellness as COVID-19 vaccination centres if needed, the Jamaica Observer reported.

“The churches which are members of the JCC would welcome the opportunity for our spaces to be used as vaccination centres as long as we can meet the necessary protocols,” said JCC president Rev Newton Dixon. Church facilities could help, he said, because “our churches are places where many people feel safe and comfortable.”

At the time Jamaica had recorded 41,400 COVID-19 cases, 18,444 recoveries and 631 deaths, most among people aged 60 and older. Dixon said churches had a responsibility to promote vaccination, especially because elderly people make up a large share of most congregations, and said the church supports “sensible and safe measures that offer protection and care for people, especially the vulnerable”.

At a Jamaica Ecumenical Mutual Mission virtual seminar, public health specialist Dr Sonia Copeland said churches should give full information while leaving decisions to congregants. Rev Norbert Stephens, general secretary of the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, dismissed claims linking vaccines to biblical end-times prophecy or the “mark of the beast”, saying “no serious Biblical scholar would support this argument”.

The offer shows what churches own: large, familiar, accessible buildings in almost every community, often with halls, parking and grounds. In a public health emergency these become public infrastructure. Using them brings practical requirements such as space for queues and waiting, ventilation, toilets, accessibility for the elderly and agreements on cleaning and liability. Churches that keep their halls and grounds in good order are better placed to serve their communities in a crisis, and to be taken seriously when the state needs space quickly.

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