RISHARD KHAN
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The Health Min­istry met with the Po­lice Ser­vice on Wednes­day morn­ing to plan a fur­ther en­hanced crack­down on false vac­ci­na­tion cards, as the gov­ern­ment moves to make the Pub­lic Ser­vice a qua­si safe zone on Jan­u­ary 17th.

How­ev­er, the Min­is­ter of Health, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, chose not to go in­to de­tails about the plans to en­sure hon­esty among pub­lic of­fi­cers.

The Min­is­ter al­so an­nounced the boost­er sched­ule for those who re­ceived their sec­ond dos­es in Ju­ly 2020. The sched­ule is ex­pect­ed to be placed on the Min­istry's var­i­ous in­for­ma­tion plat­forms. He said those who missed their win­dow in the last cy­cle can still get their boost­er.

Mean­while, COVID-19 cas­es have de­clined over the hol­i­day pe­ri­od. But ac­cord­ing to the Health Min­istry's Epi­demi­ol­o­gist, Dr Av­ery Hinds, this could be be­cause peo­ple did not turn up for test­ing over the pe­ri­od. He said the sit­u­a­tion will be mon­i­tored to see if there is a gen­uine de­cline in cas­es.

On Mon­day, Prin­ci­pal Med­ical Of­fi­cer of In­sti­tu­tions, Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards, said the min­istry is ex­pect­ing a spike in cas­es over the com­ing days emerg­ing out of the hol­i­day pe­ri­od due to gath­er­ings and move­ment of peo­ple.