Phag­wa cel­e­bra­tions across the coun­try have been can­celled in light of con­fir­ma­tion yes­ter­day that Trinidad and To­ba­go has its first COVID-19 case.

Less than an hour af­ter Health Min­is­ter, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, made the an­nounce­ment, sev­er­al no­tices were sent out ad­vis­ing that the pop­u­lar Hin­du fes­ti­val will no longer be cel­e­brat­ed.

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha board was one such or­ga­ni­za­tion to take this de­ci­sion.

Ac­cord­ing to its no­tice, Phag­wa cel­e­bra­tions at all of its schools will no longer be held.

How­ev­er, the board not­ed that there will be nor­mal school to­mor­row.

Al­so heed­ing the Health Min­is­ter’s ad­vice to re­con­sid­er mass-gath­er­ings was the Cou­va Mandir.

In a state­ment, it ad­vised that its Phag­wa cel­e­bra­tions card­ed for Sun­day has been can­celled.

Re­ferred to as “The Fes­ti­val of Colour,” a colour­ful liq­uid (abeer) and pow­der is smeared on peo­ple in cel­e­bra­tion of Spring.

Mean­while, the Min­istry of Tourism in Ja­maica yes­ter­day ad­vise that all pre­vi­ous­ly ad­ver­tised ac­tiv­i­ties for March have been post­poned un­til fur­ther no­tice.

This de­ci­sion is in keep­ing with the new COVID-19 health pro­to­cols, re­gard­ing pub­lic gath­er­ings de­clared by Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness, at an emer­gency press brief­ing held at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day evening.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so asked that or­gan­is­ers of busi­ness meet­ings and large gath­er­ings fol­low the pro­to­cols that have been es­tab­lished for per­son­al care and hy­giene.

Ja­maica’s Tourism Min­is­ter, Ed­mund Bartlett added, “We must err on the side of cau­tion in light of the new COVID-19 de­vel­op­ments in the coun­try. I have had sev­er­al meet­ings with my team about these up­com­ing events and be­lieve it is in the best in­ter­est of the pub­lic as well as the staff of the Min­istry to post­pone these events un­til it is safer to do so.”

The Min­istry said it will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and be guid­ed by the pro­to­cols for the pub­lic health and safe­ty out­lined by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.