Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith has heard Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s call for in­creased polic­ing of bars af­ter it was dis­cov­ered some of the cas­es of the lat­est wave of COVID-19 in­fec­tions were con­tract­ed in such es­tab­lish­ments. How­ev­er, Grif­fith says he will not stop there as his sights are al­so now trained on po­lit­i­cal mo­tor­cades which have mor­phed in­to “mo­bile bars.”

The sec­ond phase of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s COVID-19 epi­dem­ic be­gan al­most two weeks ago with some 19 cit­i­zens be­ing in­fect­ed from a source which, de­spite re­cent dis­cov­er­ies, still re­mains un­known.

A sec­re­tary from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Cou­va North MP’s of­fice and her fam­i­ly are among those test­ed for COVID-19. As such, the rest of the of­fice staff is now quar­an­tined and oth­er Cou­va North elec­tion cam­paign­ers who may have been along­side the woman are now on alert.

Af­ter the surge of COVID-19 clus­ter cas­es, law en­force­ment must act to en­sure that peo­ple—in­clud­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties—com­ply with the COVID re­stric­tions now. And south­ern­ers are flout­ing the COVID re­stric­tions the most, says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

And if COVID-19 cas­es con­tin­ue in­creas­ing, Gov­ern­ment will “take ac­tion” on the up­com­ing Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

De­spite an in­crease in lo­cal­ly spread COVID-19 cas­es, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion will go on.

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.

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.

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.