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.

Friday, February 28, 2025

Deyalsingh dodges questions on COVID breaches at concert

by

Raphael John Lall
1097 days ago
20220226
Patrons in the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Savannah, at  Vibes with Voicey in concert on Thursday

Patrons in the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Savannah, at Vibes with Voicey in concert on Thursday

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh dodged ques­tions con­cern­ing video footage that showed there were pos­si­ble breach­es of the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions at a So­ca con­cert at the Grand Stand, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Deyals­ingh was be­ing ques­tioned on Sat­ur­day at a vir­tu­al Min­istry of Health me­dia con­fer­ence.

“The op­er­a­tion of safe zones and the con­di­tions to be ap­plied are clear­ly list­ed in the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions about mask­ing ex­cept if you are eat­ing or drink­ing ca­pac­i­ty at 50 per cent. The ac­tu­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the op­er­a­tion of safe zones lies with the own­er/op­er­a­tor who is car­ry­ing on the event. The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions lies with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (T&TPS),” he said, re­spond­ing to a ques­tion about if the Min­istry of Health is con­cerned about breach­es of the health reg­u­la­tions at these car­ni­val events.

Dur­ing the ques­tion and an­swer seg­ment when Deyals­ingh was al­so asked how of­ten do the au­thor­i­ties re­view the rules for the safe zones and if he is sat­is­fied that the reg­u­la­tions are be­ing ad­hered to, he replied again that the en­force­ment of the safe zone pol­i­cy is for the TTPS and the spon­sor of the event to mon­i­tor.

“Yes, we con­stant­ly re­view every­thing un­der the re­mit of the Min­istry of Health, whether it is the safe zone pol­i­cy, our hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion num­bers, so it is a con­stant re­cal­i­bra­tion to look at all the da­ta avail­able. We make de­ci­sions. Like last week, we made de­ci­sions to al­low the un­der 12s who are un­vac­ci­nat­ed to go back to the safe zones. So there is a con­stant re­view.”

Ac­cord­ing to a Guardian Me­dia re­port on Sat­ur­day, de­spite the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice say­ing that they saw no breach­es of health reg­u­la­tions, the video and pho­tos of the show “Vibes with Voicey” were sub­ject to strong con­dem­na­tion by many on so­cial me­dia, with many pre­dict­ing a post-Car­ni­val spike in COVID-19 cas­es as a re­sult of the ac­tiv­i­ty.

The con­cert on Thurs­day was head­lined by Aaron “Voice” St Louis and fea­tured per­for­mances by Na­dia Bat­son, Nailah Black­man, Mi­cal Te­ja, GBM Nu­tron, Farmer Nap­py, Lyrikal, KI, and Ja­maican dance­hall artiste Kra­ni­um.

Thou­sands at­tend­ed the event and many were not wear­ing masks and ad­her­ing to health reg­u­la­tions.

On Fri­day, St Louis’ man­ag­er, Lyn­don Gomez said that the Thurs­day night show was safe but there is al­ways room for im­prove­ment.

An­oth­er car­ni­val event pro­mot­er de­fend­ed the high safe­ty stan­dards at their events.

Pub­lic Re­la­tions and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Strate­gist for the project Sea­son 22 and Sound Forge Leisel Dou­glas told the Sun­day Guardian they are host­ing sev­en events for sev­en nights for the Car­ni­val sea­son. They have com­plet­ed four events to date, she said, and all their events have been suc­cess­ful and have ad­hered to all the health reg­u­la­tions.

“We have had no in­ci­dents. Our pa­trons are re­spect­ful of the guide­lines put in place and they are ad­her­ing to them. They need to wash their hands and are ush­ered to their seats. We are a safe zone so eat­ing and drink­ing can take place in their seats.”

On Fri­day night they did a show at Sound Forge, Mu­cu­rapo Road, St James, en­ti­tled “Show­down” that fo­cused on ca­lyp­so and pan with guest artistes such as Sher­wyne Win­ches­ter, Joshua Re­grel­lo and Cro Cro.

Sun­day Guardian reached out to the Act­ing Com­mi­sison­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob for a com­ment on the mat­ter but he did not re­ply.

COVID-19


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored