Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has an­nounced three main phas­es by which the coun­try will re­open fol­low­ing the shut­ting down of busi­ness­es to com­bat COVID-19. He out­lined the el­e­ments of all six phas­es but on­ly de­tailed time­lines for the first three.

The first three phas­es will run from May 10 to May 23, the sec­ond from May 24 to June 6 and the third from June 7 to June 20.

He told the coun­try in a news con­fer­ence on Sat­ur­day that "as we mon­i­tor, if the num­bers are just as good as now, we will take steps to ad­vance the phas­es.

He ex­plained that if the fig­ures do not in­crease in any ma­jor way, Phase 2 can come ear­li­er than May 24 and Phase 3 ear­li­er than June 7.

But he al­so made it clear that if there is a spike and the num­bers are not un­der con­trol by the end of any phase, "the nec­es­sary sen­si­ble arrange­ments to be made" to pro­tect lives.

"If the spike looks more se­ri­ous and dan­ger­ous, we will have to re­sort to what was done be­fore," he said, telling the na­tion and each and every­one must now play his or her part to en­sure that the virus does not spread.

Bars will re­main closed and ser­vices such as hair­dress­ing will fall in lat­er phas­es. Schools will re­main closed in ac­cor­dance with the time pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced, that is, in Sep­tem­ber.

Ex­emp­tions in place for re­li­gious gath­er­ings will re­main.

The fol­low­ing are his an­nounce­ments on the phas­es:

Phase 1: May 10 - May 23

- From Mon­day, May 11, food es­tab­lish­ments and restau­rants would be al­lowed to open and pro­vide food ser­vices across the coun­try but no in-ser­vice din­ing will be al­lowed. Itin­er­ant and non-itin­er­ant ser­vices can al­low curb­side pick-up, dri­ve-through and walk-in pick-up. It must end at 8 pm. All em­ploy­ees of food out­lets can now go to work and food pur­chased in a nor­mal way. The ex­pec­ta­tion is that those do­ing street food will do so the high­est lev­el of hy­giene.

- Mem­bers of the pub­lic will be al­lowed to en­gage in re­strict­ed out­door ac­tiv­i­ties. This will ex­clude team or con­tact sports ac­tiv­i­ties or any ac­tiv­i­ty that re­quire gath­er­ings. You can come out to walk, hike etc, but don't con­gre­gate in groups of more than 5 and keep 6 feet away. No hug­ging, no hand-shak­ing, no kiss­ing.

- Hard­wares, elec­tri­cal stores to open all day to 8 am-4 pm; gro­ceries to con­tin­ue 8 am-6 pm.

- Ap­proval for TCL, WIT­CO, Nu Iron to re­sume op­er­a­tions from Mon­day. The main rea­son is for ex­ports to the re­gion­al mar­ket.

- We still want a lev­el of stay at home. If you are non-es­sen­tial, stay at home.

- Once you leave home to go out­side. wear a face cov­er­ing. each and every one of us must be­have as though we are car­ry­ing the virus.

Phase 2: May 24 to June 6 (if the num­bers re­main good)

- The man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor can open back on May 24.

- Pub­lic-sec­tor con­struc­tion will be restart­ed.

- Con­tin­u­a­tion of 50% ca­pac­i­ty for pub­lic trans­porta­tion - taxis and max­is.

Phase 3: June 7 to June 20 (if the num­bers re­main good)

- All pub­lic ser­vice will come back out to work with el­e­ments of flex­itime where pos­si­ble. May al­so con­sid­er al­ter­nate days of work.

- Pri­vate sec­tor con­struc­tion will be al­lowed.

- In­crease ca­pac­i­ty of max­is and taxis to 75%.

Phase 4: To be de­ter­mined

- Re­open­ing of malls & beach­es.

Phase 5: To be de­ter­mined

- Re­open­ing of cin­e­mas.

Phase 6: To be de­ter­mined

- Re­open­ing of bor­ders. With re­gards peo­ple want­i­ng to leave, the prime min­is­ter said the coun­try "is not a prison" but Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young al­so an­nounced that they are look­ing at cas­es in which peo­ple want to leave, in­clud­ing farm work­ers in Cana­da and will deal with each case as it comes, with the care that cit­i­zens are guard­ed against ven­tur­ing to places where they them­selves can be placed in dan­ger of the virus.

The open­ing of oth­er com­mer­cial busi­ness­es oth­er than those men­tioned above, will be de­ter­mined at a lat­er date.

"This is not a get­away card," the prime min­is­ter said.

He told the news con­fer­ence that it was eas­i­er for him to make the de­ci­sions to close down the non-es­sen­tial ser­vices than it was is to make the de­ci­sions he made Sat­ur­day.

"Be­cause I am a lit­tle ner­vous now about open­ing up be­cause we have seen what has hap­pened else­where," he said.

He re­mind­ed the coun­try that "we are not virus free" adding that "there is no coun­try in the world that has de­clared it­self virus-free.'

"That means we have to keep our guard up as we now take the risk of go­ing out," the prime min­is­ter said.