JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, February 17, 2025

Crowds at city centres on day 2 of Stay-at-Home order

by

Sharlene Rampersad
1783 days ago
20200331
One customer among many wears a face mask while waiting outside Republic Bank on Lower High Street, San Fernando, yesterday.

One customer among many wears a face mask while waiting outside Republic Bank on Lower High Street, San Fernando, yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

Hun­dreds of cit­i­zens yes­ter­day seemed to dis­re­gard Gov­ern­ment’s ‘Stay-at-Home’ and so­cial dis­tanc­ing or­ders as they flocked to var­i­ous venues to con­duct ac­tiv­i­ty on day two of the dri­ve to fight of the nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19).

Port-of-Spain seemed as bustling and vi­brant as any oth­er work­day as mem­bers of the pub­lic rushed to Cen­tral Bank to change their old $100 bills for new ones, to com­mer­cial banks to de­posit and change pay cheques and to the Trea­sury to col­lect cheques.

TTPost of­fices were al­so over­run by those hop­ing to col­lect their pen­sion and so­cial de­vel­op­ment grants as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic caused sig­nif­i­cant pan­ic buy­ing at su­per­mar­kets last week and in­to the week­end, leav­ing many feel­ing that su­per­mar­ket stocks would run out.

And al­though the T&T Su­per­mar­kets’ As­so­ci­a­tion has said there are cur­rent­ly no short­ages, those out­side the TTPost St Vin­cent Street of­fice yes­ter­day were anx­ious and wor­ried.

“We just want to go in the gro­cery be­fore every­thing done,” one woman who did not want to be named said. “Just give we the cheques, let we go.”

The group of about 50 peo­ple who turned up ear­ly to con­duct busi­ness were even­tu­al­ly ad­vised by staff to dis­perse and re­turn af­ter noon, when the cheques were sup­posed to be ready for dis­tri­b­u­tion. But those in­struc­tions went un­heed­ed by most. In­stead, some of those wait­ing be­came ver­bal­ly abu­sive to­wards the staff, ac­cus­ing them of be­ing lazy and not do­ing their jobs.

“Al­lyuh had since 8 o’clock this morn­ing to sort out the cheques, peo­ple who mon­ey go­ing straight in the bank doh have to wait un­til af­ter 12,” one el­der­ly man shout­ed.

Some showed rea­son when it was not­ed they need­ed to ad­here to the so­cial dis­tanc­ing mea­sures, how­ev­er, and tried to sep­a­rate them­selves from the crowd by mov­ing to the oth­er side of the street to wait for their cheques.

At the Cen­tral Bank, those peo­ple who wait­ed un­til the fi­nal day for the ex­change of the old pa­per-based $100 bill for the new poly­mer bills were lined up in their num­bers out­side of the build­ing yes­ter­day. In fact, the line snaked around the cor­ner from the Ed­ward Street side en­trance set up for the pub­lic to In­de­pen­dence Square. Po­lice of­fi­cers even­tu­al­ly had to be dis­patched to the site to en­sure law and or­der was main­tained.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic were al­so lined up out­side in­ter­net ser­vice provider Flow’s and KFC’s In­de­pen­dence Square branch­es.

There were al­so long lines out­side banks. Al­though none of those in line want­ed to speak to the Guardian Me­dia on the record, some said they had no choice but to join the lines as they had busi­ness to con­duct.

At su­per­mar­kets in Cunu­pia, shop­pers were made to wait out­side by staff as the num­ber of peo­ple al­lowed in at any giv­en time was lim­it­ed. The same was be­ing done at sev­er­al su­per­mar­kets in Aranguez and El So­cor­ro, San Juan.

At PriceS­mart’s Port-of-Spain branch, shop­pers lined up us­ing shop­ping carts as di­viders be­tween them and oth­er cus­tomers as they wait­ed to be let in­to the build­ing. PriceS­mart staff al­lowed on­ly ten cus­tomers in at a time and wait­ed un­til the same amount had left the build­ing be­fore al­low­ing any more in.

At Tru­Valu su­per­mar­ket in San Juan, sim­i­lar pre­cau­tions were in place. One staff mem­ber said most of the pan­ic buy­ing had sub­sided and al­though there was a line to en­ter the su­per­mar­ket, she said the num­bers were sim­i­lar to a reg­u­lar day’s sales.

COVID-19


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored