The UWI St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus is the newest quar­an­tine cen­tre to be set up lo­cal­ly as 140 stu­dents re­turned from the UWI Mona Cam­pus in Ja­maica on Sat­ur­day.

Cana­da Hall will be their home for the next 14 days as the stu­dents ob­serve strict health and safe­ty guide­lines set out by the Min­istry of Health.

Their re­turn is in keep­ing with the promise by Gov­ern­ment to bring home stu­dents who had re­mained in var­i­ous Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries af­ter their ex­ams are com­plet­ed.

The stu­dents re­port­ed­ly land­ed at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port around 4 pm Sat­ur­day and were met by health of­fi­cials fol­low­ing which they were di­rect­ed on­to four Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) bus­es to be tak­en to the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus. The stu­dents ar­rived just around 7 pm on the south­ern side of the cam­pus.

Ac­com­pa­nied by both po­lice and sol­diers who will re­main with them for the du­ra­tion of their stay, the stu­dents were un­able to freely dis­em­bark as they wait­ed for San­tec of­fi­cials to set up mist­ing ma­chines for them to be sani­tised along with their lug­gage.

Di­rect­ed by health of­fi­cials who were clad in full Per­son­al Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment (PPE), the stu­dents were giv­en med­ical checks and as­sess­ments be­fore they were al­lowed to go to their as­signed rooms.

It is ex­pect­ed that health of­fi­cials will re­turn to the cam­pus on Sun­day to con­tin­ue car­ry­ing out as­sess­ments on the group, even as the sec­ond batch of stu­dents num­ber­ing be­tween 20 and 30 are ex­pect­ed to re­turn on Sun­day as well.

The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that to en­sure the stu­dents are com­fort­able dur­ing their en­forced stay, a fan, along with gro­ceries such as tea, cof­fee, sug­ar, milk and oats; toi­letries such as san­i­tary nap­kins, soap and toi­let pa­per; as well as clean­ing prod­ucts in­clud­ing brooms, pails and mops were al­so placed in each of the dor­mi­to­ry rooms.

A se­nior of­fi­cial from the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) said this was part of the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort by the Min­istry of Health, the T&T De­fence Force, the NCRHA, and the Coun­try Med­ical Of­fice of Health (CMOH) to as­sist the stu­dents be­fore their par­ents could take them home in the com­ing days.

Of­fi­cials have said that any­one want­i­ng to drop off care pack­ages can do so at the Car­mo­ny Hall carpark dai­ly be­tween 9 am and noon.

Se­nior cam­pus of­fi­cials said Cana­da Hall and Mil­ner Hall were both hand­ed over to the TTDF and the NCRHA for use dur­ing this part of the COVID-19 re­lief mea­sures. They said the cam­pus was asked to fa­cil­i­tate the stu­dents who will re­quire in­ter­net ac­cess as some are still en­gaged in on­line ex­ams.

When the Sun­day Guardian ar­rived at the cam­pus around 2 pm on Sat­ur­day, MTS work­ers along with per­son­nel from the NCRHA were seen re­mov­ing trash and clear­ing the front of the build­ing which was be­ing pa­trolled by sol­diers.

Of­fi­cials have said close to 300 stu­dents from both Cave Hill, Bar­ba­dos and Mona, Ja­maica, are ex­pect­ed to re­turn home be­fore the month ends.

NCRHA of­fi­cials said the rooms have all been re­fur­bished and will pro­vide ad­e­quate ac­com­mo­da­tions for this set of re­turn­ing na­tion­als.

Sev­er­al cu­ri­ous passers-by last evening ex­pressed hap­pi­ness over the move by Gov­ern­ment to al­low the stu­dents to re­turn home once their ex­ams were over.

A woman who works near­by said, "It is good they get to come back. They are chil­dren and would al­ready be scared of be­ing on their own and away from their par­ents. This way, at least they are here and will be go­ing home af­ter the two weeks. I'm hap­py for them."

A cou­ple walk­ing along the perime­ter fence as they ex­er­cised said they were not both­ered by the re­turn of the stu­dents or wor­ried that any of them could be di­ag­nosed with the COVID-19 virus.

A PH dri­ver drop­ping off pas­sen­gers in the vicin­i­ty of the cam­pus south­ern gate was ini­tial­ly per­turbed to learn that stu­dents re­turn­ing from Ja­maica were now be­ing housed on the cam­pus as his girl­friend was a stu­dent there.

How­ev­er, he re­laxed af­ter be­ing told the cam­pus re­mained closed to the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion and that on­line learn­ing would con­tin­ue un­til Sep­tem­ber when all schools and ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion fa­cil­i­ties re­open.

Mean­while, some rel­a­tives took van­tage points close to the Pi­ar­co Air­port to wel­come their loved ones with warm greet­ings writ­ten on plac­ards.