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Monday, February 17, 2025

CARPHA head warns against reopening T&T's borders

by

Radhica De Silva
1783 days ago
20200401
CARPHA executive director Dr Joy St John says it is not wise to reopen Trinidad and Tobago's borders to nationals coming from COVID-19-hit regions at this time.

CARPHA executive director Dr Joy St John says it is not wise to reopen Trinidad and Tobago's borders to nationals coming from COVID-19-hit regions at this time.

Peo­ple who are cur­rent­ly out­side Trinidad and To­ba­go should stay out to pre­vent a sec­ond or a pos­si­ble third wave of COVID- 19 cas­es, says Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Dr Joy St John.

St John’s rec­om­men­da­tion comes even as some mem­bers of the pub­lic and Op­po­si­tion con­tin­ue to call for a re­open­ing of the bor­ders to al­low some na­tion­als strand­ed abroad to re­turn home.

Speak­ing at a vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, how­ev­er, St John said open­ing the bor­ders will not al­low T&T to flat­ten the curve.

She said epi­demi­o­log­i­cal da­ta on COVID-19 cas­es is cur­rent­ly be­ing com­piled which shows the analy­sis of the dis­tri­b­u­tion, pat­terns and de­ter­mi­nants of health and dis­ease con­di­tions in de­fined pop­u­la­tions. This date, he said, is al­ready show­ing that they must be very care­ful in how they ap­proach treat­ment and man­age­ment of the spread of the virus. She not­ed that a risk pro­file is al­so be­ing done on pa­tients, in­cor­po­rat­ing da­ta on their ages and health his­to­ry to help the in the bat­tle to erad­i­cate the virus.

"We don't have the full pic­ture. PA­HO (Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion) may have it. We do not just do a de­mo­graph­ic pro­file but al­so an epi­demi­o­log­i­cal pro­file be­cause we are aware that there will be sec­ond and third waves of the dis­ease," she said.

"Peo­ple with dis­eases, lung con­di­tions, those old­er with un­der­ly­ing con­di­tions, there are some peo­ple who will not be ex­posed but if we open our bor­ders and in­crease traf­fic from coun­tries with trans­mis­sion (then we could have a sec­ond or third wave)."

Asked whether the Caribbean was al­ready see­ing a sec­ond wave, St John re­spond­ed, "We are about to get in­to the slop­ing of the curve and we are on the flat part, please don't put a sec­ond wave on top of that."

Asked whether oth­er coun­tries out­side of the Caribbean were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a sec­ond wave, she said, "A sec­ond wave on top of the first wave is not the ex­pe­ri­ence glob­al­ly. There is an epi­dem­ic curve, a peak­ing, wan­ing and then ces­sa­tion. Usu­al­ly, if there are no deaths in 14 days you are out of the first wave. Hav­ing a sec­ond wave means the mea­sures that we put to cur­tail the dis­ease in the first wave have been lift­ed."

How­ev­er, she said most coun­tries are in­creas­ing their mea­sures and have ex­pand­ed the range of busi­ness­es that can­not open and im­ple­ment­ing cer­tain sup­pres­sion mea­sures.

"We’re not in the sec­ond wave yet," she added.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young an­nounced the clos­ing of the na­tion’s bor­ders from mid­night on March 22 un­til fur­ther no­tice, which meant a ban on all in­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al pas­sen­ger flights.

Sev­er­al na­tion­als, in­clud­ing groups in Bar­ba­dos, Suri­name and Venezuela, have been un­able to re­turn home and peo­ple from sev­er­al spheres, in­clud­ing their fam­i­ly mem­bers, have been urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to al­low them to re­turn home, while the UNC has even threat­ened to take the mat­ter to court.

How­ev­er, both Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Young have re­it­er­at­ed re­peat­ed­ly that they will not re­open the bor­ders as they have to act in the best in­ter­est of those here in T&T by keep­ing the bor­ders closed.

COVID-19


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