Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has de­nied the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to re­open restau­rants in the first phase of the re­open­ing plan was aimed at ben­e­fit­ting big busi­ness­es.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh caught sev­er­al food han­dlers break­ing COVID-19 safe­ty pro­to­cols as they at­tend­ed to cus­tomers and served meals with­out wear­ing masks yes­ter­day, the first day of phase one of the re­open­ing of busi­ness­es fol­low­ing lock­down mea­sures.

Weeks of crav­ing for the savoury taste of dou­bles, aloo pies and pholourie did not re­sult in a mad rush as the sale of T&T’s pop­u­lar street foods re­sumed yes­ter­day.
But many ven­dors told Guardian Me­dia they al­so did not cook their usu­al amount of the In­do-Trinida­di­an del­i­ca­cies, as they pre­dict­ed a hash­er mar­ket brought on by COVID-19.

Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed to “bring on board” in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Gas Strate­gies to as­sist with its gas val­ue chain amid the ill-ef­fects from cur­rent glob­al is­sues plus the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The re­cent­ly-pre­sent­ed Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s (EBC) draft or­der on T&T’s 41 con­stituen­cies is a pre­cur­sor for up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions - but the chal­lenge is now how T&T can host elec­tions amid COVID-19 safe­guards.

The To­ba­go arm of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Child Pro­tec­tion Unit is now in­ves­ti­gat­ing an in­ci­dent in which pornog­ra­phy was flashed on the screen dur­ing an on­line Zoom class be­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed by a Bish­op’s High School teacher yes­ter­day, forc­ing an abrupt end to the ses­sion.

As the coun­try an­tic­i­pates an im­mi­nent lift­ing of re­stric­tions im­ple­ment­ed in the face of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants’ As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud is urg­ing all busi­ness­es to com­ply with what­ev­er pa­ra­me­ters are set out for them by Gov­ern­ment as the coun­try be­gins its eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, de­spite any chal­lenges they may have faced dur­ing this time.

The lat­est batch of na­tion­als who’ll be al­lowed to re­turn to Trinidad and To­ba­go are groups in Guyana, Venezuela and Mar­gari­ta – but every­one will have to make their own way home as Gov­ern­ment won’t be send­ing repa­tri­a­tion flights.

Po­lice of­fi­cers who warn chil­dren with drugs should pass the in­for­ma­tion on to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh says.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young yes­ter­day re­it­er­at­ed that Nu­trien Ltd was not send­ing home any work­ers al­though it had de­cid­ed to shut down one of its five plants at the Pt Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

Af­ter 70 days wait­ing to en­sure they were safe of COVID-19, 33 Trinida­di­an na­tion­als were fi­nal­ly re­leased from the step-down fa­cil­i­ty in Tacarigua and al­lowed to re­turn to their homes yes­ter­day.

Gov­ern­ment has re­ceived high marks for its han­dling of COVID-19 and the eco­nom­ic and so­cial fall-out from the pan­dem­ic.