Af­ter just one week of be­ing al­lowed to re­open, bars are now hav­ing their hours of op­er­a­tion re­duced fol­low­ing what of­fi­cials called “dis­turb­ing” re­ports of mass con­gre­ga­tions dur­ing a time when the coun­try is try­ing to main­tain gains made in its fight against the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

There is good news for small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es as the Gov­ern­ment’s $300 mil­lion loan guar­an­tee pro­gramme is ex­pect­ed to kick off this week.

Just a week in­to the re­open­ing of bars, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh is warn­ing that they may have to shut them down again if op­er­a­tors and pa­trons con­tin­ue to act ir­re­spon­si­bly.

Two more na­tion­als on board the En­chant­ment of the Seas have test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, bring­ing the num­ber of cas­es from the cruise ship to nine, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh say­ing dur­ing Sat­urday’s vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence.

Na­tion­als aboard the En­chant­ment of the Sea cruise ship will be moved to State quar­an­tine on land af­ter pos­i­tive COVID-19 tests aboard the ship.

Bars that do not com­ply with the COVID-19 guide­lines for re­open­ing, will not be sup­plied with al­co­holic prod­ucts from to­day.

Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley yes­ter­day an­nounced that from Ju­ly 1 there will be no more cur­few re­stric­tions in Bar­ba­dos in the first sign that the coun­try is seek­ing to re­open ac­tiv­i­ty fol­low­ing COVID-19 re­stric­tions.

Preg­nant stu­dent She­niequa Lewis is now safe in quar­an­tine in her home­land of An­tigua, days af­ter Guardian Me­dia high­light­ed her strug­gles to re­turn home.

Trinida­di­an na­tion­als aboard the En­chant­ment of the Seas will be ea­ger­ly await­ing word from the Min­istry of Health on whether they will be able to dis­em­bark and go home to their fam­i­lies to­mor­row.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Lovell Fran­cis says the Gov­ern­ment is do­ing its best to as­sist stu­dents who are strand­ed out­side of Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause of the lock­down of the bor­ders due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“When are you com­ing home, dad­dy?” 
It is what Kirk Bayne hears every time he speaks to his chil­dren via What­sApp. At the ages of 11 and eight, Bayne’s chil­dren are too young to un­der­stand dad­dy’s predica­ment of be­ing trapped in a for­eign coun­try with no idea of when he would see them again.
“I tell them it is all de­pen­dent on when our Gov­ern­ment de­cides to fly us home or repa­tri­ate us. I do not want the bor­ders open be­cause I do not want COVID-19 spread­ing and get­ting them sick. I tell them Trinidad owns an air­line and the Gov­ern­ment can very eas­i­ly fly us home with­out open­ing bor­ders,” Bayne said yes­ter­day.
Bayne is part of a group of 22 T&T cit­i­zens in Cana­da lob­by­ing the Gov­ern­ment to send a repa­tri­a­tion flight to al­low them to re­unite with their fam­i­lies here. It has been three months since the Gov­ern­ment closed T&T’s bor­ders to stem in the im­por­ta­tion of COVID-19. Now that pub­lic health au­thor­i­ties have suc­cess­ful­ly con­trolled the spread of the virus lo­cal­ly, how­ev­er, they are say­ing it is time for them to come home.

Trinida­di­an cruise ship work­ers cur­rent­ly be­ing quar­an­tined on the En­chant­ment of the Seas are pleased with the Gov­ern­ment’s so­lu­tion which fi­nal­ly al­lowed them to take their sec­ond COVID-19 tests yes­ter­day.