The Min­istry of Health has sought to re­as­sure the pub­lic that it is close­ly man­ag­ing the na­tion­al drug sup­ply, fol­low­ing con­cerns ex­pressed by the Phar­ma­cy Board and phar­ma­cists across the coun­try.

A week af­ter the prin­ci­pal stopped all on­line class­es for Forms 4, 5 and 6, par­ents of Bar­rack­pore West Sec­ondary School staged a so­cial­ly dis­tanced protest call­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to in­ter­vene im­me­di­ate­ly.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic Ja­cob Wal­lace (not his re­al name) has at­tend­ed three il­le­gal par­ties, or as they are called, “Zess­er par­ties” or "Cur­few par­ties".

In his child's mind, lin­ing up in Mr Kean's Shop on Old St Joseph Road, Laven­tille, in post-war Trinidad among 15 or so peo­ple with his ra­tion card in hand was a nor­mal week­ly oc­cur­rence for Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool, known to many as Chalk­dust.

Epi­demi­ol­o­gist Dr Av­ery Hinds is con­fi­dent that T&T's health sys­tem is ready to deal with any in­crease in the spread of the Delta vari­ant or an­oth­er vari­ant of the COVID-19 that ar­rives in T&T. Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram said that as of Fri­day, Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials con­firmed ten ad­di­tion­al cas­es of the Delta vari­ant of con­cern. The to­tal con­firmed Delta cas­es now stand at 42. Ac­cord­ing to the in­for­ma­tion Paras­ram gaves at the Min­istry of Health's vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence on Sat­ur­day, there are Delta vari­ant cas­es con­firmed in every coun­ty in the coun­try in­clud­ing To­ba­go.

In the lead­up to the re­open­ing of Mon­day's safe zones, there has been a 50 to 70 per cent up­take in vac­ci­na­tions at cen­tres op­er­at­ed by the South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has giv­en the as­sur­ance that they will do their part with re­gard to en­force­ment in Safe Zones from to­day.

The bar in­dus­try con­tin­ues to count mil­lions in loss­es since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit T&T in 2020. Bars were among the first sec­tors to close and now, in 2021, they are among the last sec­tors to re­open. To­mor­row at least 50 per cent of bars are ex­pect­ed re­open amid a host of re­stric­tions.

On the day of the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion on Ju­ly 1, many chil­dren would have re­ceived hugs, kiss­es, pep talks, prayers, moral sup­port and cheers from their par­ents and sib­lings as they head to write the ex­am.

Psy­chi­a­trist and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh says that teach­ers have the right to take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion guid­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) to en­sure a safe en­vi­ron­ment for stu­dents and them­selves.

Lo­cal busi­ness cham­bers have in­di­cat­ed their sup­port for Gov­ern­ment’s plan to in­tro­duce “safe zones”, which will al­low for the re­open­ing of many en­ter­tain­ment and recre­ation­al spaces across the coun­try.

Four more peo­ple have lost their lives to COVID-19, while an­oth­er 246 peo­ple have test­ed pos­i­tive for the dis­ease, ac­cord­ing to the lat­est up­date from the Min­istry of Health.