In­dus­tri­al Court Pres­i­dent Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix has stat­ed that manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tions can­not be im­ple­ment­ed uni­lat­er­al­ly by em­ploy­ers.

This, as the Min­istry of Health has con­firmed that eight more peo­ple have lost their lives to COVID-19. 

Caris­sa F. Eti­enne, Di­rec­tor of the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) em­pha­sizes that the COVID-19 virus is neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ing the health of young chil­dren and teenagers across na­tions, and ad­vo­cates for swift and ef­fec­tive ac­tions to be tak­en. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease.

Eleven more peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed over the past 24 hours for breach­ing the cur­few stip­u­lat­ed un­der the cur­rent Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, ac­cord­ing to the lat­est COVID Reg­u­la­tions en­force­ment up­date from the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Pop­u­lar Tri­ni-born rap­per Oni­ka Maraj known as "Nic­ki Mi­naj" cre­at­ed a furore on so­cial me­dia Mon­day night when she tweet­ed an un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed claim about im­po­tence and swollen tes­ti­cles in some­one in Trinidad fol­low­ing COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for St Au­gus­tine and Shad­ow Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter for the Op­po­si­tion, Khadi­jah Ameen, is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to re­view the GATE pol­i­cy, with a view to re­build­ing the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

Six­teen peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed for breach of the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions over the last 24 hours, ac­cord­ing to the lat­est COVID Reg­u­la­tions en­force­ment up­date from the Po­lice Ser­vice.

The Po­lice Ser­vice has been plunged in­to mourn­ing fol­low­ing the death of yet an­oth­er of­fi­cer to COVID-19 dis­ease.

Job loss­es, fi­nan­cial prob­lems, peo­ple be­ing con­fined to homes dur­ing lock­down, sick­ness and the death of loved ones all brought on by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic have im­pact­ed neg­a­tive­ly on mar­riages and fam­i­ly life in T&T.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh is con­cerned that the num­ber of stu­dents turn­ing up for the Pfiz­er vac­cine has waned in re­cent weeks.

More than 270,000 preg­nant women have been in­fect­ed with COVID-19 in the Amer­i­c­as, and more than 2,600 have died from the virus. In Mex­i­co and Colom­bia, COVID-19 be­came the lead­ing cause of ma­ter­nal deaths in 2021.

The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AM­CHAM T&T) has sub­mit­ted its rec­om­men­da­tions for the up­com­ing 2021-2022 Na­tion­al Bud­get to the Min­istry of Fi­nance, re-stat­ing its com­mit­ment to work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment and oth­er stake­hold­ers on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tions.