RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

He was ex­pect­ed to re­turn to Trinidad two days ago af­ter vis­it­ing his fam­i­ly in Italy. But pop­u­lar ex­ec­u­tive chef Cris­t­ian Gri­ni is stuck in his home­land in Italy and can­not come back to Trinidad and To­ba­go any­time soon be­cause of height­ened coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) re­stric­tions glob­al­ly.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via What­sapp yes­ter­day, Gri­ni said while he did not want to trig­ger any para­noia, he felt it was im­por­tant for the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion in T&T to get to­geth­er and ad­vise cit­i­zens about what to do to pre­pare for the virus.

Gri­ni is the chef and own­er of Port-of-Spain’s pop­u­lar Bu­zo Os­te­ria Ital­iana restau­rant. He said when he ar­rived in Italy a week and a half ago, he did not ex­pect to see re­stric­tions height­ened so dras­ti­cal­ly.

“I am in Cen­tral Italy and pret­ty much every­where is the same. All of Italy is the red zone,” Gri­ni said.

“The ma­jor­i­ty of stores are closed. It’s manda­to­ry to stay closed. On­ly the phar­ma­cy and su­per­mar­kets are open. Every­one has to stay at home. They are try­ing to min­imise hu­man con­tact so they can get this cri­sis un­der con­trol.”

Gri­ni said what is hap­pen­ing in Italy could very well hap­pen to the Unit­ed States and Eng­land with­in a mat­ter of weeks.

Say­ing he could very well end up be­ing stuck in Italy for a month or as much as six weeks, Gri­ni said it all de­pends on how fast the sit­u­a­tion is brought un­der con­trol.

He said cur­rent­ly, no one could trav­el freely in Italy.

“Ger­many, France is on lock­down, I can’t fly to Eng­land ei­ther. My re­gion­al flight was from Lon­don to Mi­a­mi, which is now not pos­si­ble be­cause (US Pres­i­dent Don­ald) Trump has closed off all flights from Eu­rope to the Unit­ed States, so that made it very dif­fi­cult now,” he said.

“Maybe the one op­tion could be Cana­da. I am look­ing at op­tions but right now we can­not leave the city be­cause any­where you are, you need a spe­cial per­mit to dri­ve. If any­one is sick, or if you have to go and look af­ter some­one you can get a per­mit to dri­ve. Oth­er than that you have to stay where you are.”

Asked if he want­ed lo­cal au­thor­i­ties to make spe­cial pro­vi­sions for him to re­turn to Trinidad, Gri­ni said this may not be pos­si­ble.

“I am ob­vi­ous­ly look­ing for­ward to get­ting back home but it is im­pos­si­ble. I think it is out of their (T&T Gov­ern­ment) hands. There are so many re­stric­tions here and you can’t trav­el around and can­not leave your own town. The air­port is two hours away from here. I can­not fly to Lon­don or France or Ger­many. I’m stuck,” he said.

Gri­ni said if the pan­dem­ic spreads to T&T, where the first case was an­nounced yes­ter­day, schools and busi­ness places could be forced to shut down but he said he re­mains hope­ful that things do not get out of hand.

He ex­plained that food and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals were ful­ly stocked in Italy pri­mar­i­ly be­cause Italy pro­duces every­thing. How­ev­er, with T&T be­ing heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on im­ports, Gri­ni said the sit­u­a­tion may not be the same. How­ev­er, he ad­vised cit­i­zens not to be­come para­noid.

“I don’t think Trinidad have the time for par­ties and gov­ern­ment min­is­ters to fight over them­selves. They have to make sure that every­one is safe. The present Gov­ern­ment has to li­aise with the Op­po­si­tion and for once in their lives, in­stead of fight­ing, bat­tling, they have to find a point or so­lu­tion that will be best for the pop­u­la­tion in Trinidad,” Gri­ni said.

“They have to make sure that we are ready for it. Hos­pi­tals and health cen­tres need to be ready. We have to take care of old­er peo­ple. Coro­n­avirus gets every­one sick and some may need ICU. I think we should be ready and make sure that no one is pan­ick­ing.”

He said peo­ple must al­so be ed­u­cat­ed.

“Gov­ern­ment has to think smart­ly and ad­vise the coun­try on how to han­dle things, how to shop around, how much dis­tance you should keep. There is no need to shake hands or be hug­ging peo­ple right now. Be sen­si­tive but not make every­one para­noid to the point that they stop do­ing every­thing,” he added.

He said it would al­so be wise to buy ex­tra gro­ceries and sup­plies.

While the coro­n­avirus has the po­ten­tial to wreck economies, Gri­ni said putting peo­ple’s lives first was what was most im­por­tant. Italy has more than 12,000 con­firmed cas­es and a death toll of 827.