SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD and

SASCHA WIL­SON

Three po­lice of­fi­cers, sta­tioned in Tu­na­puna, Princes Town and St Joseph, have test­ed pos­i­tive for the COVID-19 virus.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Fran­cis Joseph told Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day that the of­fi­cer at the Tu­na­puna sta­tion is a mem­ber of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force.

He said the sta­tion was sani­tised and of­fi­cers who were in con­tact with the in­fect­ed of­fi­cer have been placed in quar­an­tine.

Fran­cis said the sec­ond of­fi­cer ‘passed through’ the St Joseph sta­tion be­fore be­ing test­ed pos­i­tive. That sta­tion was al­so sani­tised.

The third of­fi­cer was sta­tioned at the Princes Town sta­tion and that sta­tion has since been sani­tised as well.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia was told by an of­fi­cer at the Tu­na­puna sta­tion that af­ter their col­league test­ed pos­i­tive, none of the of­fi­cers who came in­to con­tact with him was quar­an­tined or re­moved from ac­tive du­ty.

The of­fi­cer, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty for fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion, said the of­fi­cers were con­cerned about not on­ly their own health but the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­fect­ing the pub­lic as they car­ry about their du­ties.

“It is like no­body cares. We out­side work­ing among every­body and any amount of us could have the virus,” the of­fi­cer said.

Fran­cis de­nied this claim yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, al­though he could not say how many of­fi­cers had been placed in quar­an­tine from the Tu­na­puna sta­tion.

Mean­while, of­fi­cers with­in the South­ern Di­vi­sion will be man­ning the Princes Town sta­tion for the next few days while their col­leagues are in quar­an­tine. This mea­sure was tak­en af­ter a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer at­tached to the sta­tion test­ed pos­i­tive.

Up to Fri­day evening, mem­bers of the pub­lic were not be­ing al­lowed in­to the com­pound. They were ad­vised to seek as­sis­tance from the neigh­bour­ing po­lice sta­tions.

Al­though a clean­ing team sani­tised the sta­tion on Fri­day, an of­fi­cer said they were not tak­ing any chances as the prob­a­bil­i­ty of in­fec­tion is high. A se­nior of­fi­cer al­so con­firmed that they will be seek­ing man­pow­er from the var­i­ous sta­tions with­in the di­vi­sion to man the sta­tion.

The of­fi­cer was test­ed last Fri­day but the re­sults were on­ly con­firmed on Thurs­day. As a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure, the 80-plus of­fi­cers were sent home and the sta­tion closed to the pub­lic. All the of­fi­cers, whether they had in­di­rect or di­rect con­tact with the se­nior of­fi­cer, are ex­pect­ed to be test­ed. How­ev­er, up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, they were await­ing word from the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health on when they will be test­ed.

Sev­er­al po­lice sta­tions through­out the coun­try, as well as oth­er pub­lic build­ings, have been tem­porar­i­ly closed over the last few weeks for san­i­ta­tion af­ter per­sons with the virus or those who had come in­to con­tact with in­fect­ed per­sons en­tered the sta­tions.

The op­er­a­tions of the Point Fortin Dis­trict Court have been ad­just­ed un­til fur­ther no­tice af­ter an em­ploy­ee was ex­posed to a per­son who test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus.

A re­lease from the Ju­di­cia­ry on Fri­day stat­ed, “Please be ad­vised that no one will be al­lowed in­to the court build­ing. Va­cat­ing this build­ing has be­come nec­es­sary as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure giv­en that a mem­ber of staff has been ex­posed to a per­son who has been test­ed for COVID-19 and is await­ing re­sults. While the staff mem­ber has not been con­firmed as COVID-19 pos­i­tive, the usu­al pre­cau­tions for this lev­el of ex­po­sure have called for the cur­rent course of ac­tion.”

The build­ing is to be sani­tised and there will be no in-per­son hear­ings or ac­tiv­i­ties un­til fur­ther no­tice. Vir­tu­al court hear­ings, how­ev­er, will con­tin­ue. The court may be con­tact­ed at: mr­cc.point­fortin@tt­law­courts.org (868) 223-1060 Exts. 1850-1/1853.