As the fear of the re­cent uptick in lo­calised COVID-19 cas­es con­tin­ued to fu­el de­bate on whether the Gov­ern­ment should again lock down the coun­try, the Min­istry of Health yes­ter­day re­port­ed eight new cas­es, the high­est dai­ly count since the virus hit Trinidad and To­ba­go’s shores.

The Min­istry of Health has an­nounced sev­en new COVID cas­es. The fol­low­ing is part of the 6pm up­date by the Min­istry of Health.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith has post­poned the Com­mis­sion­er’s Cup due to the re­fusal by the Min­istry of Health to al­low medics, coach­es, se­cu­ri­ty or sub­sti­tutes to par­tic­i­pate in the event due to COVID-19 re­stric­tions.

In a state­ment, the ANSA McAL Group con­firmed that the em­ploy­ee was re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment and is do­ing well. The com­pa­ny not­ed that the em­ploy­ee had not worked at the fa­cil­i­ty since Ju­ly 17. How­ev­er, he came in con­tact with some­one who test­ed pos­i­tive on Ju­ly 19 and fell ill the fol­low­ing day. In keep­ing with the com­pa­ny’s pro­to­cols, the em­ploy­ee did not re­port to work.

Af­ter yes­ter­day’s an­nounce­ment of a new phase of COVID-19 spread, Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) leader Phillip Alexan­der wrote Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes and the Elec­tions Bound­aries Com­mis­sion call­ing for the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion to be post­poned.

With the coun­try at the start of what ap­pears to be a sec­ond phase of COVID-19 in­fec­tions fol­low­ing five lo­cal­ly trans­mit­ted in­fec­tions from an un­known source last week, the Min­istry of Health is in over­drive to lo­cate the source/s and de­ter­mine the spread of this wave of in­fec­tions through con­tact trac­ing.

In the past week, Trinidad and To­ba­go has had five peo­ple who con­tract­ed COVID-19 from an un­known source with­in the coun­try, sprout­ing eight more cas­es through pri­ma­ry con­tacts and forc­ing some busi­ness­es to close for sani­ti­sa­tion ex­er­cis­es, the clo­sure of three schools and the self-quar­an­ti­ning of hun­dreds of peo­ple.

A po­lice of­fi­cer sta­tioned at River­side Plaza in Port-of Spain and her sis­ter, who works in the fi­nance de­part­ment of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, have test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.

Nine Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) em­ploy­ees are now un­der­go­ing tests to de­ter­mine if they con­tract­ed the COVID-19 virus af­ter one of their co-work­ers was con­firmed to be case num­ber 148 on Mon­day.

For the sec­ond time in less than a week, a pri­ma­ry school in T&T has been forced shut and staff and stu­dents sent in­to self-quar­an­tine over fears they may have con­tract­ed COVID-19 through a pupil’s rel­a­tive.

A group of cit­i­zens cur­rent­ly strand­ed in the Unit­ed States has sued the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, over its re­fusal to dis­close the cri­te­ria be­ing used to grant trav­el ex­emp­tions un­der on­go­ing COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions. 

Mem­bers of the T&T Coast Guard are now rais­ing con­cern over the in­flux of il­le­gal im­mi­grants in­to T&T, most­ly from Venezuela, say­ing they are pos­ing a ma­jor health risk in coastal com­mu­ni­ties and for of­fi­cers dur­ing the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.