Gath­er­ings of more than ten per­sons are be­ing dis­cour­aged, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has an­nounced at a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing. These are among strict mea­sures be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to pre­vent the spread of COVID-19 in this coun­try.

Speak­ing fol­low­ing the sec­ond Cab­i­net meet­ing to be held this week to deal with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Dr Row­ley al­so hard a warn­ing for bar own­ers who have ig­nored calls to shut down.

He said that "lev­el of ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is be­ing not­ed" and he has asked At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Raw to de­ter­mine whether pos­ing a pub­lic health threat al­so pos­es a threat to the li­cences of those bars.

"Some are still con­gre­gat­ing and will cause threat to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. We do have some heavy hands we can bring to bear with such be­hav­iour," he said.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said crews from in­ter­na­tion­al flights and car­go ves­sels are among those barred from en­ter­ing the coun­try.

"We will do what needs to be done to ac­quire our goods and sup­plies, but crews will not be al­lowed," he said.

It was al­so an­nounced that the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer will use the Quar­an­tine Act and per­sons put in self-quar­an­tine will be mon­i­tored by T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and T&T De­fence F0rce pa­trols.

Oth­er key an­nounce­ments made at to­day's post-Cab­i­net brief­ing are:

° SEA, CSEC and CAPE will take place at lat­er dates, pos­si­bly in May.

° Ro­ta­tion pol­i­cy be­ing in­tro­duced for health care work­ers so they will not have to be treat­ing COVID-19 pa­tients for a pro­longed pe­ri­od of time.

° Nipdec has re­ceived some 24,695 masks. Some will be stored at the Min­istry of Health in ad­di­tion to at Nipdec's ware­house in Ch­aguara­mas.

° All sev­en con­firmed COVID-19 cas­es in T&T are im­port­ed but if peo­ple con­tin­ue to be­have ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty there is the risk of com­mu­ni­ty spread.

° COVID-19 pa­tients in To­ba­go will be sent to Trinidad for treat­ment.

° The 68 peo­ple repa­tri­at­ed from a cruise ship off Guade­loupe have been tak­en to a quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty. They were trans­ferred with the help of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty with ab­solute­ly no dis­rup­tion to nor­mal health care de­liv­ery.

° Friends and rel­a­tives of these quar­an­tined pe­ri­ods can drop off care pack­ages at the San­gre Grande Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit.

° All 68 are all well and asymp­to­matic at this point in time.

° The T&T Red Cross has part­nered with the Health Min­istry to pro­vide 50 trained per­sons to help with con­tact trac­ing.

° The re­serve re­quire­ment for com­mer­cial banks has been re­duced from 17 per cent to 14 per cent. This will make more cash avail­able to banks and the lend­ing rate should im­me­di­ate­ly go down.

° The re­po rate has been re­duced from five per cent to 3.5 per cent. Banks will im­me­di­ate­ly re­duce their lend­ing rates by the same amount.

° The prime lend­ing rate will go down by 30 per cent to close to six per cent.

° The Cen­tral Bank has asked com­mer­cial banks to re­duce the spread be­tween de­posit and lend­ing rates.

° Banks have agreed to pro­vide a mora­to­ri­um on mort­gages and loans for one month. Un­der the Skip a Pay­ment ini­tia­tive all penal­ties on non-pay­ment will be waived.

° The in­ter­est rate on cred­it cards will be re­duced by 10 per­cent­age points.

° Talks are tak­ing place with cred­it unions to re­duce in­ter­est rates down to six per cent or less.

° Mon­ey lenders Is­land Fi­nance and Uni­com­er are be­ing ap­proached to pro­vide sim­i­lar fa­cil­i­ties to their clients.

° Ned­co will be giv­en fund­ing to as­sist clients with soft loans for projects.

° The TT Cham­ber of Com­merce and the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) have been asked to speak with their mem­bers about pre­serv­ing jobs.

° Pay­ment of the ar­rears Gov­ern­ment owes to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty be­ing ac­cel­er­at­ed and they will get a sub­stan­tial amount of the mon­ey owed to them.

° Liq­uid­i­ty sup­port pro­gramme will be of­fered through cred­it unions to pro­vide loans to in­di­vid­u­als and small busi­ness­es.

° Al­lo­ca­tions of for­eign ex­change in the sys­tem will be in­creased and for­eign ex­change will be pro­vid­ed for es­sen­tial items such as phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and ba­sic food items.