Gail Alexan­der

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, a mem­ber of the T&T del­e­ga­tion to Do­ha, Qatar, led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and two Op­po­si­tion UNC Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans have re­cent­ly con­tract­ed COVID-19.

A state­ment from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice yes­ter­day con­firmed Al-Rawi yes­ter­day test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.

A sub­se­quent state­ment from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) mean­while con­firmed that a mem­ber of the sup­port staff team which ac­com­pa­nied the Prime Min­is­ter to the Qatar en­er­gy con­fer­ence has al­so test­ed pos­i­tive for the dis­ease.

The Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said, “The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al will con­tin­ue to ex­e­cute his du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as he re­mains in quar­an­tine as rec­om­mend­ed by the Min­istry of Health’s COVID-19 guide­lines. Fur­ther up­dates on this mat­ter will be pro­vid­ed sub­se­quent­ly.”

Al-Rawi didn’t an­swer calls or What­sApp queries on his con­di­tion and where and how he con­tract­ed the virus yes­ter­day.

Sources said his sched­ule in­cludes usu­al­ly vis­it­ing his San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy of­fice, but couldn’t give de­tails.

Mean­while, the OPM stat­ed that the of­fi­cer who went to Qatar with the PM’s del­e­ga­tion test­ed neg­a­tive via a PCR test be­fore de­par­ture and again test­ed neg­a­tive on ar­rival at the air­port in Qatar.

“How­ev­er, a sub­se­quent test at the ho­tel pro­duced a pos­i­tive re­sult. The of­fi­cer is cur­rent­ly in iso­la­tion and un­der med­ical su­per­vi­sion,” the OPM stat­ed.

The OPM said that test re­sults for the oth­er mem­bers of the del­e­ga­tion re­main neg­a­tive.

That im­plied that the PM and oth­er tech­nocrats were al­so test­ed.

Row­ley held meet­ings with oth­er world en­er­gy lead­ers yes­ter­day and con­tin­ues to­day.

The del­e­ga­tion al­so in­clud­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T pres­i­dent Mark Lo­quan, Caribbean Air­lines chair­man Ron­nie Mo­hammed, En­er­gy Min­istry act­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Pene­lope Brad­shaw-Niles and Strate­gic En­er­gy Ad­vis­er to the En­er­gy Min­is­ter Sel­wyn Lash­ley.

A Gov­ern­ment source claimed the per­son who had COVID was “not one of the tech­nocrats” but was some­one from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter. They didn’t say if the per­son was an ad­min­is­tra­tive or an­oth­er type of of­fi­cer.

Young and oth­ers on the Qatar trip didn’t an­swer yes­ter­day.

Oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, ex­as­per­at­ed at the cu­rios­i­ty about the of­fi­cial, said, “Queen Eliz­a­beth II al­so had COVID.”

UNC MPs al­so with COVID

Al-Rawi is the sixth Cab­i­net mem­ber to con­tract COVID since 2021 and the first for this year.

All Gov­ern­ment mem­bers were vac­ci­nat­ed last year.

Those who had COVID-19 last year were PM Row­ley, Gen­der Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning and Sport Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe.

Al-Rawi had at­tend­ed both the Sen­ate last Tues­day and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last Fri­day.

Al-Rawi al­so joins oth­er Op­po­si­tion Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans - who are vac­ci­nat­ed - and who cur­rent­ly have COVID or are re­cu­per­at­ing from it.

UNC front­lin­er Dr Roodal Mooni­lal yes­ter­day con­firmed that he re­cent­ly had COVID. He’d been away from Par­lia­ment for the last two weeks.

“I have com­plet­ed my pe­ri­od of iso­la­tion and been is­sued the ‘re­lease’ let­ter from the Min­istry of Health and will be back in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day,” Mooni­lal added.

Mooni­lal said it seemed “like get­ting the mild COVID is the glob­al fash­ion now and that is in­evitable giv­en the hec­tic agen­da pub­lic of­fi­cials en­dure.”

UNC Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al was ab­sent from the Sen­ate last Tues­day due to ill­ness.

Guardian Me­dia re­cent­ly con­firmed she has COVID and will not be at­tend­ing the Sen­ate to­day ei­ther.

Tem­po­rary UNC Sen­a­tor Tay­lor Jow­elle De Souza, who act­ed last week, is ex­pect­ed to do so again to­day.

UNC sen­a­tor Damien Ly­der, who at­tend­ed last Tues­day’s Sen­ate, said he was not close to Al-Rawi or any sur­face the AG sat on or used.

Ly­der added, “I ob­served World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion pro­to­cols with so­cial dis­tanc­ing - six feet and more and was masked. I’m al­so dou­bly vac­ci­nat­ed. I re­ceived my first dose on Au­gust 11, 2021 and sec­ond on Sep­tem­ber 2, 2021 and I’ll be in the Sen­ate (to­day).”

Yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate Leader Clarence Ramb­harat said he was not in the Sen­ate with Al-Rawi last Tues­day.

House leader Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and oth­er Gov­ern­ment front­lin­ers who were in the Low­er House with Al-Rawi last Fri­day, didn’t an­swer calls on whether they would be quar­an­tined or get test­ed.

UNC MP Rudy In­dars­ingh not­ed Al-Rawi last Fri­day had been us­ing the Par­lia­ment’s speak­ing booths for pre­sen­ta­tions and didn’t have a mask on in the booths.

He said the House Speak­er had the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure the Par­lia­ment’s safe­ty.

Par­lia­ment of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day that the premis­es are sani­tised all the time, in­clud­ing the speak­ing booths used by MPs.