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Monday, February 17, 2025

PM tests negative for COVID-19

by

Gail Alexander
1782 days ago
20200401
Rayann Mitchell and her mother Dian (not in picture) look at Prime Minister Keith Rowley press conference from her home in San Fernando, yesterday.

Rayann Mitchell and her mother Dian (not in picture) look at Prime Minister Keith Rowley press conference from her home in San Fernando, yesterday.

INNIS FRANCIS

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley con­firmed he’s been test­ed for COVID-19 and the test re­sult was neg­a­tive. He gave the con­fir­ma­tion at yes­ter­day’s me­dia brief­ing up­dat­ing the coun­try on the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion.

“Yes, I’ve had my test done at the ap­pro­pri­ate time and not been deemed to be pos­i­tive. (The test) was said to be neg­a­tive. I’ve al­so kept a very low con­tact lev­el for 14 to 28 days ... as I want to be here to serve you and I’m not tak­ing any chances,” Row­ley said.

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter said to­day he has to be in To­ba­go for his el­dest broth­er’s fu­ner­al and may stay a few days. His broth­er Math­ias Joseph, 81, died last Fri­day at Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Row­ley said, “I’m mov­ing from here (Trinidad) to there (To­ba­go) very quick­ly. I’ll be in a fu­ner­al that al­lows on­ly five peo­ple.”

The lat­ter ref­er­ence was to the fact that Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est COVID-19 con­tin­gency this week was to re­duce the num­ber of peo­ple al­lowed to gath­er from 10 to five.

Row­ley mused, “How does one con­duct a part­ing with five peo­ple from a very large fam­i­ly? It’s not nice.”

He said he was aware of is­sues like virus out­breaks since he was 12 years and his grand­fa­ther had told him about the ef­fect of a flu out­break of 1918 on To­ba­go. He said thank­ful­ly, T&T’s not at that stage where a huge num­ber of coffins are need­ed.

The PM said he felt a chill look­ing at world me­dia re­ports of an army con­voy go­ing to an Ital­ian town to re­move the dead and of re­ports of 24 dead in a New York hos­pi­tal.

Row­ley al­so said his younger daugh­ter Sonel, who’s on staff at Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, New York, is work­ing from home and fol­low­ing au­thor­i­ties’ in­struc­tions.

“I must ad­mit, while I man­age T&T’s af­fairs, every hour I think of my daugh­ter and New York. There’s a lot to be learned by fol­low­ing else­where and we hope to im­prove our man­age­ment of sys­tems (re­gard­ing COVID- 19).”

He said the Gov­ern­ment’s al­so in touch with T&T’s over­seas mis­sions which all have “bat­tened down the hatch­es.” He said the New York area where Pene­lope Beck­les (Am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Na­tions) lived was among the first to fall un­der re­stric­tions.

De­spite all the de­sen­si­tis­ing new of the virus world­wide, Row­ley said the Cab­i­net has been func­tion­ing.

“I draw my strength from the peo­ple of T&T. I see so many good as­pects of how we’re cop­ing,” Row­ley added, be­stow­ing high praise on Chief Med­ical of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram and his team on how the is­sue has been han­dled.

COVID-19


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